ICE, /'• NUMBER,,/ 

FROM  THE 

PRIVATE   LIBRARY 

W.    IF1. 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


The  RALPH  D.  REED  LIBRARY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  GEOLOGY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES,  CALIF. 


SPARKS 


FROM  A  GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER 


ALEXANDER  WINCHELL,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR  or  "  PREADAMITES,"  ETC.  ETC.,  AND  PROFESSOR  OF  GEOLOGY  AND 
PALEONTOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  or  MICHIGAN 


Das  wichtigste  Resultat  des  sinnigen  physischen  Forschens  ist  dieses,  den 
GEIST  der  Xitur  zu  ergreifen,  welcher  unter  der  Decke  der  Erscheinungen  ver- 
hullt  liegt. — A.  v.  HUMBOLDT 

I  think  it  wise  sometimes  to  shut  up  shop  and  walk  in  the  twilight,  and  look 
up  at  the  stars  or  down  upon  the  sea. — J.  P.  LESLEY 


THIRD    EDITION 


CHICAGO 

S.  C.  GRIGGS    AND    COMPANY 

1887 


COPYRIGHT,  1881, 
BY  S.  C.  GRIGGS  AND  COMPANY 


Geology 
Library 


U/72/s 


TO 

LOTIE, 

VOX,  VITA,  VIS. 


8-12874 


PEEFAOE. 


THE  present  work  consists  of  descriptions,  essays  and 
discussions  on  such  themes  as  may  be  conceived  suited  to 
occupy  the  attention  of  a  geologist  who  tries  to  contem- 
plate his  vocation  in  the  whole  breadth  of  its  relations. 
The  themes  range  from  descriptive  and  literary  to  scientific, 
historical  and  philosophic,  while  the  style  of  their  treat- 
ment is  intended  to  suit  the  general  reader.  They  present 
the  results  of  some  of  the  collateral  and  recreative  occu- 
pations of  science,  rather  than  of  its  most  serious  and 
characteristic  efforts,  and  should  possess,  therefore,  a  gen- 
eral interest.  The  scientist  on  his  vacation  becomes  very 
much  like  other  people.  He  feels,  thinks,  imagines,  and 
enjoys,  only  with  an  intenser  action  in  consequence  oi 
penetrating  a  little  deeper  into  the  nature,  relations  and 
significance  of  things  around  him.  In  the  intervals  of  his 
serious  work  his  attention  is  engaged  by  the  subjects  which 
interest  other  men;  and  if  his  intelligence  is  many-sided, 
he  must  feel  that  he  has  something  to  say  on  many  topics. 
His  scientific  habits,  acquired  under  the  rigorous  exactions 
of  his  profession,  confer  upon  him  a  peculiar  aptitude  for 
observation,  and  a  safe  facility  in  reaching  conclusions. 

For  many  reasons,  indeed,  it  is  desirable  that  men 
engaged  in  science  should  turn  their  attention  frequently 
to  the  subjects  which  interest  their  fellow  scientists  and 
fellow  men.  Such  a  course  will  save  them  personally  from 
entertaining  narrow  views  of  the  world.  It  will  also  tend 
to  identify  them  with  the  society  in  which  they  move,  and 


PREFACE. 

will  conciliate  toward  them  and  the  sciences  which  they 
pursue  the  respect  and  consideration  of  those  who  have  it 
in  their  power  to  determine,  to  a  large  extent,  the  position 
and  influence  which  scientific  men  shall  enjoy.  This  end, 
which  all  scientific  students  must  recognize  as  desirable, 
will  be  further  promoted  by  the  employment  of  a  style 
inspired  by  that  warmth  and  animation  which  the  great 
truths  of  science  are  so  well  adapted  to  impart,  and  which 
even  the  inexpert  are  so  capable  of  appreciating. 

It  is  especially  desirable  that  persons  of  the  requisite 
aptitudes  should  seek  to  possess  themselves  of  a  wide  range 
of  scientific  knowledge;  since  it  is  only  by  this  means  that 
the  connections  of  the  sciences  can  be  discovered,  and  their 
relations  to  a  system  of  universal  truth  adequately  under- 
stood. Only  by  such  means  can  the  jealousies  and  bigotries 
which  have  sometimes  defaced  the  pages  of  the  history  of 
science  be  avoided.  Most  of  all,  it  seems  desirable  to  infuse 
into  scientific  thought  a  more  philosophic  spii'it;  since  all 
the  great  problems  propounded  by  modern  science  are 
essentially  philosophic  in  character,  and  rapidly  lead  the 
analytic  mind  into  the  domain  of  metempirical  phenomena 
and  conceptions.  It  is  hoped,  therefore,  that  the  meta- 
physical turn  which  the  author's  thoughts  have  sometimes 
taken  will  be  recognized  as  sustaining  most  legitimate 
relations  to  the  system  of  science. 

Some  parts  of  the  present  work  will  be  found  conceived 
in  a  spirit  of  playful  irony,  at  which,  it  is  hoped,  no  reader 
will  discover  occasion  for  offense.  Certain  errors  have 
seemed  to  call  for  animadversion,  but  no  word  has  been 
recorded  wherein  has  been  inserted  any  intentional  sting. 

THE  AUTHOR. 
ANN  AKBOR,  September  6,  1881. 


CONTENTS. 


AESTHETIC. 

PAQB 

I.    MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  MER  DE  GLACE,  13 

II.    ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC, 59 

III.  THE  BEAUTIFUL, 100 

CHRONOLOGICAL. 

IV.  THE  OLD  AGE  OF  CONTINENTS,  ....  122 
V.    OBLITERATED  CONTINENTS,      .....  134 

VI.    A  GRASP  OF  GEOLOGIC  TIME,      ....  152 

CLIMATIC. 

VII.    GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS,      .._.._  175 

VIII;    THE  CLIMATE  OF  THE  LAKE  REGION,          -        .  200 

IX.    MAMMOTHS  AND  MASTODONS,   .....  234 

HISTORICAL. 

X.    SALT  ENTERPRISE  IN  MICHIGAN,         ...  255 
XI.    A  REMARKABLE  MAORI  MANUSCRIPT,      .        .        .282 

PHILOSOPHICAL. 

XII.    THE  GENEALOGY  OF  SHIPS,         ....  301 

XIII.  HUXLEY  AND  EVOLUTION,         .....  319 

XIV.  GROUNDS  AND  CONSEQUENCES  OF  EVOLUTION,      -  332 
XV.    THE  METAPHYSICS  OF  SCIENCE,       .        .        .        .358 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS. 


1.  MONT  BLANC  AS  SEEN  FROM  GENEVA,       .        .    Frontispiece. 

See  description,  page  24. 

PAGE 

2.  CLOCK  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  STRASBOURG,  15 

3.  HOUSE  OF  GUTENBERG,  THE  INVENTOR  OF  PRINTING,          17 

4.  ERRATIC  BLOCKS  ON  THE  GLACIER  OF  THE  AAR,  .      18 

The  spot  where  Agassiz  and  his  companions  encamped 
for  investigation  of  the  Glaciers. 
From  a  photograph  on  glass  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

5.  DIFFICULT  PASSAGE  ON  THE  MER  DE  GLACE,  44 

From  aplwtograph  on  glass  by  J  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

6.  ICE  NEEDLES  OF  GLACIER  DES  Bois,  THE  LOWER  PART 

OF  THE  MER  DE  GLACE, 47 

From  a  photograph  on  glass  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

7.  CHAMONIX  AND  MONT  BLANC,  FROM  NEAR  THE  FOOT  OF 

THE  GLACIER  DES  Bois,     ......      49 

The  Arve  and  the  village  of  Charnonix,  with  the  base 
of  the  Montanvert,  on  the  left.  Beyond  is  the  Gla- 
cier des  Bossons,  descending  from  the  summit  of 
Mont  Blanc  (not  shown).  To  the  right  of  Mont 
Blanc  is  the  Dome  du  Gouter,  and  next  the  Aiguille 
du  Gouter.  In  the  valleys  beyond  the  Glacier  des 
Bossons  are  the  Glacier  de  Taconnay  and  the  Glacier 
de  la  Gria. 

From  a  photograph  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

8.  GENERAL  STRUCTURE  OF  THE  ALPS,  54 

From  Studer's  Geologic  der  Schweiz. 

9.  VIEW  OF  MONT  BLANC  FROM  THE  BREVENT,          .        .      66 

From  a  pliotograph  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 

10.  SERACS  NEAR  THE  JUNCTION  OP  GLACIERS  DBS  BOSSONS 

AND  DE  TACONNAY,  ON  THE  ASCENT  OP  MONT  BLANC,      74 
From  a  photograph  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

11.  INCIPIENT  CREVASSES  AT  JUNCTION  AND  PLATEAU.    AS- 

CENT OP  MONT  BLANC, 75 

From  a  photograph  by  <7.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

12.  CABINS  OP  THE  GRANDS  MULETS,  WITH  AIGUILLE  DU 

MIDI  IN  THE  BACKGROUND  (SEEN  PROM  ABOVE),  .         77 

From  a  photograph  by  J.  Ldvy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

13.  GRAND  CREVASSE  AT  THE  FARTHER  BORDER  OP  THE 

GRAND  PLATEAU.    ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC,    .        .      83 
From  a  pliotograph  by  J.  Levy  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

14.  SUMMIT  OP  MONT  BLANC,  AS  SEEN  PROM  THE  GRAND 

PLATEAU.    ASCENT  OP  MONT  BLANC,         ...      85 
From  a  photograph  by  J.  Lemj  et  Cie.,  Paris. 

15.  A    QUASI-COIN,    SAID    TO    HAVE    BEEN    TAKEN    PROM    AN 

ARTESIAN     BORING    IN    MARSHALL    COUNTY,    ILLINOIS, 

AT  A  DEPTH  OP  114  FEET, 171 

From  a  photograph  furnished  by  J.  W.  Moffat. 

16.  THE  HAIRY  MAMMOTH  RESTORED,        .        .        .        .235 

From  a  restoration  in  the  EstablisJiment  of  Prof.  H.  A. 
Ward,  RocJmter,  N.  T. 

17.  GRINDER  OP  THE  AFRICAN  ELEPHANT.    PLAN  OP  ENAM- 

EL PLATES  ON  THE  CROWN, 249 

18.  GRINDER  OF  THE  INDIAN  ELEPHANT.    PLAN  OP  ENAMEL 

PLATES  ON  THE  CROWN,      ______     249 

19.  GRINDER  OF  MAMMOTH.    PLAN  OP  ENAMEL  PLATES  ON 

THE  CROWN,       ..______     249 

20.  GRINDER  OP  MASTODON.    PERSPECTIVE  VIEW  FROM  THE 

_    250 


SPARKS  FROM  A  GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 


MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  HER  DE  GLACE. 


r  I  ^HE  Alps,  towering  a  present  reality  before  our  eyes — 
-*-  the  glaciers,  opening  their  dark  crevasses  at  our  feet, 
and  lifting  their  crystal  pinnacles  above  our  heads, — these 
are  the  scenes  which  the  reader  is  invited  to  enjoy.  I 
do  not  propose  to  treat  him  to  a  dry  description  of  a 
range  of  mountains  four  thousand  miles  away.  He  will 
go  with  me  at  once  to  the  land  bristling  with  rocky 
"  needles,"  and  proud  in  its  hoary  mountain-tops,  which 
glisten  with  the  ancient  rime  of  a  thousand  years, —  the 
land  of  Mont  Blanc  and  the  Jungfrau,  of  the  Wetterhorn 
and  the  Matterhorn  and  the  Finsteraarhorn,  and  many 
another  sonorous  mountain  "  horn." 

We  set  out  in  the  morning  from  Brussels  —  another 
Paris  on  a  smaller  scale, —  and  passing  within  sight  of  the 
historic  field  of  Waterloo — "the  grave  of  France,  the 
deadly  Waterloo" — traverse  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Lux- 
embourg, wedged  in  among  the  greater  nationalities  like 
an  imperiled  skiff  in  an  ice-floe,  and  then  run  down 
through  those  beautiful  provinces  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine, 
which  to-day  are  weeping  with  heads  bowed  low,  like  lov- 
ing daughters  torn  from  an  affectionate  mother.  At  Metz 

13 


14  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

we  view  the  vast  and  magnificent  circumvallation  of  earth- 
works from  which  arose  in  recent  times  that  roar  of  can- 
nonry  which  jarred  the  ears  of  the  world.  Winding 
through  the  rugged  region  of  the  Vosges  mountains,  we 
arrive  at  Strasbourg,  where  we  spend  the  night.  Here 
we  pay  a  visit  of  curiosity  to  the  most  famous  clock  in 
the  world,  and  gather  some  fragments  of  the  Cathedral 
tower,  which  rises  over  it,—  brought  down  by  the  missiles 
from  the  German  camp. 

This  celebrated  astronomical  clock  was  constructed  by 
Schwilgue",  and  completed  in  1842.  The  globe  beneath 
shows  the  course  of  the  stars;  on  the  left  is  a  piece  of 
mechanism  exhibiting  Christian  chronology;  on  the  right, 
the  geocentric  opposition  and  conjunction  of  the  sun  and 
moon;  above  it,  a  dial  determining  the  intervening  time; 
still  higher  is  shown  the  course  of  the  moon.  As  noon 
approaches,  an  angel  on  the  first  gallery  strikes  the  quar- 
ters on  a  bell  in  his  hand;  higher  up,  a  skeleton,  repre- 
senting time,  strikes  the  hour  of  twelve.  Figures  around 
it  strike  the  quarters,  and  represent  man's  progress 
through  boyhood,  youth,  manhood,  and  old  age.  Under 
the  first  gallery,  the  symbolic  deity  of  the  day  steps  out 
into  a  niche, — : Apollo  on  Sunday,  Diana  on  Monday,  and 
so  on.  In  the  highest  niche,  the  Twelve  Apostles  move 
around  a  figure  of  the  Savior,  bowing  as  they  pass.  On 
the  highest  pinnacle  of  the  side-tower  is  perched  a  cock, 
which  flaps  its  wings,  stretches  its  neck,  and  crows,  awak- 
ening the  echoes  of  the  remotest  nooks  of  the  Cathedral. 

Here  in  Strasbourg  the  art  of  printing  was  invented 
in  1440,  by  Johann  Gutenberg,  and  the  house  in  which  he 
is  said  to  have  lived  still  remains  standing.  The  art  of 
using  reversed  letters  carved  on  wooden  tablets  had  been 


CLOCK  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  STRASBOURG. 
15 


16  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

previously  practiced,  but  Gutenberg  first  introduced  mov- 
able types.  The  Bible  was  the  first  book  printed.  It 
appeared  at  Mayence  in  two  folio  volumes  in  1456. 

As  we  sweep  around  the  city,  on  our  departure,  the 
form  of  the  grimy  old  Cathedral  rises  so  grandly  and 
loftily  above  the  Alsatian  capital  that  it  seems  to  hold 
possession  of  the  plain  in  a  sort  of  solitude, —  that  solitude 
which  those  experience  '  '  se  loftiness  of  character  finds 
no  companionship  in  the  common  herd  of  men.  The  total 
altitude  of  the  tower  is  524  feet,  this  being  the  loftiest 
building  in  Europe.  St.  Martin's,  at  Landshut,  in  Ger- 
many, is  483  feet ;  St.  Peter's,  at  Rome,  455  feet ;  St. 
Paul's,  in  London,  340  feet. 

At  Basel,  the  rushing  Rhine  is  turbid  and  cold  with 
the  contributions  of  a  hundred  glacier  torrents.  As  its 
restless  waters  hasten  from  our  presence,  thought  follows 
them,  spinning  a  thread  of  storied  recollections  from  end 
to  end  of  the  classic  Rheingau.  At  Basel  is  a  most  ven- 
erable cathedral,  founded  in  1010,  the  seat  of  the  great 
Council  of  1431,  convened  to  effect  a  reformation  in  the 
church. 

Leaving  Basel  we  ascend  the  valley  of  the  Aar,  whose 
roaring  torrent  babbles  of  a  recollection  of  the  mountain 
and  the  glacier,  and  whose  turbid  waters  and  pebbled 
borders  proclaim  our  advent  in  the  region  of  the  Jura 
Alps.  The  name  of  the  river  and  of  the  two  Aar  glaciers 
in  which  it  takes  its  rise  is  memorable.  It  recalls  the  name 
of  the  illustrious  savant  Agassiz,  who  in  1841  erected  his 
hut  upon  the  glacier,  and  studied,  with  a  few  chosen  com- 
panions, the  laws  of  glacier  motion,  laying  the  foundation 
of  the  bold  theory,  since  accepted  as  a  doctrine  of  science, 
that  a  general  glaciation  once  visited  the  whole  northern 


THE  HOUSE  OF  GUTENBERG,  THE  INVENTOR  OF  PRINTING. 
17 


18  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

hemisphere.*  From  this  spot  was  fittingly  brought  a  huge 
mass  of  Alpine  granite,  to  commemorate  the  final  resting- 
place  of  his  mortal  body  in  the  beautiful  cemetery  of 


ERRATIC  BLOCKS  ON  THE  GLACIER  OF  THE  AAR.  THE  SPOT  WHERE 
AGASSIZ  AND  HIS  COMPANIONS  ENCAMPED  FOR  THE  INVESTIGA- 
TION OF  THE  GLACIERS.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  ON  GLASS  BY 
J.  LEVY  ET  CIE.,  PARIS. 

*  The  eminent  Swiss  naturalist,  Ilugi,  in  1827  caused  a  hut,  now  in  ruins,  to 
be  constructed  on  the  ice  at  the  junction  of  the  two  glaciers  —  the  Ober  and  the 
Unter-Aar  glaciers.  This,  in  1840,  had  been  transported  by  the  glacier  to  the 
distance  of  5,900  feet.  It  was  on  the  same  glacier  that  Agassiz,  then  professor  at 
Neuchatel,  erected,  at  the  expense  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  the  hut  from  which  his 
celebrated  observations  were  made.  He  was  accompanied  by  Messrs.  E.  Desor, 
C.  Vogt,  Wild  and  others.  The  accounts  of  their  observations,  published  in  the 
Augsburg  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  were  dated  from  "  H6tel  des  Neuchatelois."  On 
the  summit  of  a  rocky  projection,  near  the  same  spot,  a  "pavilion"  has  been 
more  recently  erected  by  M.  Dolfuss-Aussct,  of  Jdiihlhausen  (in  Alsace),  and 
here  he  passes  some  weeks  of  every  summer. 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE   MER    DE    GLACE.  19 

Mount  Auburn,  a  rude  but  eloquent  monument,  in  its  ex- 
ternals as  unlike  the  imposing  sculptures  which  surround 
it  as  in  the  interest  it  awakens  more  touching,  more 
inspiring  and  more  catholic.  On  one  side  is  engraved: 

JEAN  Louis  RUDOLPHE  AGASSIZ. 
On  the  other: 

BOHN  AT  MOTIEK,  SWITZERLAND,  MAY  28,  1807. 
DIED  AT  CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  DECEMBER  14,  1873. 
And  on  the  edge: 

Boulder  from  the  Aar  Glacier.* 

Winding  through  the  gorges,  often  vineyard-fringed  on 
either  hand,  we  come  out  at  length  into  the  broad  valley 
of  Switzerland,  resting  between  the  Jura  and  the  Bernese 
Alps.  The  Alpward  glimpses  and  nearer  landscapes  be- 

*  In  according  to  Agassiz  the  great  credit  of  placing  the  "  Glacier  Theory  " 
on  a  firm  foundation,  we  must  not  overlook  the  work  of  his  predecessors.  In 
1815  Playfair  attributed  to  glaciers  the  transportation  of  erratic  blocks.  In  1821 
M.  Venetz  advanced  the  opinion  that  the  glaciers  of  Valais  and  adjacent  regions 
had  formerly  a  vastly  greater  development  than  at  present  (Venetz,  Mentoire  sur 
la  temperature  clans  les  Alpes,  1821,  in  Memoires  de  la  socie'te'  helvetique  des  sci- 
ences natun'lles,  vol.  i,  pt.  2).  M.  Venetz  does  not  in  this  memoir  attempt  to 
explain  by  the  same  means  the  general  phenomena  of  the  boulder  formation,  but 
it  is  reported  that  some  years  later  he  gave  this  extension  to  his  views.  In  1829 
Goethe  clearly  shadowed  forth  the  same  theory  in  Wilhelm  Meisfer's  Wander- 
jahre,  vol.  ii,  ch.  10.  In  1834  M.  Jean  dc  Charpentier,  in  a  memoir  read  before  the 
"  Helvetic  Society  of  Natural  Sciences,"  at  Lucerne,  on  the  probable  cause  of  the 
transport  of  erratic  blocks  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  (Sec  Annales  des  Mines, 
viii;  also  in  German,  in  Frocbel  and  Hecr's  Mittheilun-gen  aus  dem  Gebiete  der 
theoretischen  Erdkunde,  p  482  seq.),  presented  substantially  the  modern  theory  of 
glacier  transportation.  This  paper  was  the  occasion  which  directed  the  attention 
of  Agassiz  to  the  same  investigation,  and  hence,  in  1836,  he  spent  some  months 
in  Charpcnticr's  vicinity  for  the  purpose  of  making  observations  for  himself 
(Charpeutier,  Essai,  p.  1). 

In  1837  M.  Agassiz,  as  president  of  the  same  society,  delivered  at  Neuchatel 
an  opening  discourse  on  this  subject.  It  gave  rise  to  a  discussion  which  occupied 
a  large  part  of  the  time  of  the  session. 

In  1840  appeared  Agassiz1  great  work,  Etudes  sur  les  Glaciers,  with  an  atlas 
of  thirty-two  plates.  In  the  same  year  appeared  works  by  others  —  Godeffroy, 
Notice  sur  les  Glaciers,  les  moraines  el  les  Blocs  erratiques  des  Alpes,  Paris  and 
Geneva;  Le  Chanoinc  Rendn.  Theorie  des  Glaciers  de  la  Savoie,  Chambery.  M. 
Jean  de  Charpentier's  Essai  sur  les  Glaciers  was  then  written,  but  it  seems  not 
to  have  been  publisked  till  1841. 


20  SPARKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

gin  to  infuse  in  us  an  unwonted  inspiration.  The  lake 
of  Biel  and  the  lake  of  Neuchatel  stretch  their  skiff- 
dotted  surfaces  before  us  in  summer  serenity, —  as  if  to 
rest  the  eye  which  must  climb  the  weary  steeps  of  the 
stupendous  mountains  rising  in  the  far  horizon.  Now 
and  then  a  glistening  spectacle  is  briefly  revealed  through 
the  rifts  in  the  clouds,  and  we  strain  our  eyes  and  wrench 
our  necks  to  make  the  most  of  this  first  revelation  of 
eternal  snows.  Now,  by  irresistible  association,  we  recall 
those  lines  in  the  "Childe  Harold"  where,  posted  in  this 
very  valley,  the  wanderer  thrills  at  the  spectacle  pre- 
sented by  the  sublimities  of  Nature. 

*    *    "Every  mountain  now  hath  found  a  tongue, 
And  Jura  answers  through  her  misty  shroud 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud." 

Vines,  vines,  on  every  hand.  At  Neuchatel  we  have 
reached  the  early  home  of  Agassiz.  We  look  down  on  the 
little  city  from  the  high  grade  of  the  railroad,  upon  the 
brown  tiles  of  the  housetops  and  the  classic  lake  beyond, 
and  warm  with  sentiments  of  interest  and  affection  for 
the  sake  of  a  single  name.  We  have  chosen  the  route 
through  Neuchatel  for  the  sake  of  this  inspiring  moment. 
Down  by  the  lake  rises  the  new  college  edifice,  in  which 
is  preserved  the  old  collection  of  specimens  gathered  by 
Agassiz  while  professor  here. 

But  now  all  this  is  left  behind.  Vines,  vines,  on  every 
hand  lean  upon  little  stakes,  which  bristle  all  over  the 
steep  hill-sides.  The  name  of  Concise  from  the  train- 
conductor's  lips  turns  our  attention  to  a  quaint  old  town, 
whose  enterprising  scientists  have  dredged  from  the  lake- 
bottom  a  large  collection  of  curious  relics  of  the  habita- 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE    MEE   DE   GLACE.  21 

tions  of  our  prehistoric  ancestors,  erected  upon  piles  in 
the  lake. 

Grandson,  which  the  conductor  announces  as  "Grasso," 
wears  a  still  more  ancient  look,  and  suggests  that  it  is  in 
reality  the  grand/a*/w  of  all  these  Swiss  towns,  having 
been  built  during  the  Roman  occupation.  At  Yverdon,  at 
the  foot  of  the  lake,  we  pass  the  former  home  of  Pestalozzi, 
the  great  reformer  of  primary  education  and  the  inaugu- 
rator  of  that  system  of  "  object  teaching "  now  grown  into 
general  acceptance. 

Coursing  rapidly  over  a  region  of  peats,  dug  by  scpualid 
rustics,  and  spread  out  like  the  gi'ass  of  New  England 
meadows,  to  dry  in  the  sun,  we  plunge  down  upon  one 
of  the  prettiest  little  cities  that  eye  ever  rested  upon — 
Lausanne,  perched  upon  the  steep  slope  which  overhangs 
the  lake  of  Geneva.  Toward  the  left,  the  blue  water 
carries  the  e}Te  as  far  as  Vevay  and  the  historic  Castle 
of  Chillon;  toward  the  right,  the  shimmering  surface 
stretches  to  the  city  of  Geneva,  our  immediate  goal,  a 
name  redolent  of  varied  reminiscences  of  mediaeval  and 
modern  times;  while  in  front  of  us,  beyond  the  placid 
breadth  of  the  lake,  roll  up  in  receding  gi-andeur  the 
dark  mountain  summits  of  Chablais.  Behind  them,  we 
know  that  the  snow-mantled  pinnacles  of  the  Mont  Blanc 
range  rise  in  cold  serenity,  but  the  jealous  clouds  enwrap 
them  from  human  eyes,  as  if  fearful  that  the  home  of 
frost  and  cloud  and  ether  would  be  desecrated  by  the 
too  familiar  gaze  of  mortals.  So  expectation  recedes 
from  weary  tip  toe,  and  we  glide  down  into  the  city  of 
Calvin  and  Servetus,  and  "  the  self-torturing  sophist 
wild"  Rousseau,  and  the  "  Joint  High  Commission,"  and 
the  ticking  of  a  million  watches,  and  the  polyglot  sounds 


22  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

which  emanate  from  a  thousand  hotels  and  boarding- 
houses. 

Geneva,  for  beauty  of  situation,  stands  first  in  the  list 
of  cities;  and  of  all  the  lakes  in  the  world,  there  is  not 
one  so  enchantingly  framed  in  mountain  magnificence, 
so  sweetly  toned  down  to  the  grassy  beach  on  which  it 
ripples,  as  the  historic  and  richly  storied  lake  of  Geneva. 
The  amphitheater  which  surrounds  the  lake  is  dotted 
with  many  a  classic  and  luxurious  villa.  The  villa  Dio- 
dati,  on  the  southern  shore,  was  once  the  residence  of 
Lord  Byron.  On  the  north  shore  is  Ferney,  a  village 
created  by  Voltaire;  and  his  unostentatious  chateau  may 
still  be  visited  there.  At  Pregny  is  the  magnificent  new 
villa  of  Adolf  Rothschild,  from  which  the  welcome  visitor 
enjoys  a  view  of  Geneva  —  lake  and  city — and  of  the  am- 
phitheater of  mountains,  backed  in  the  far  southeast  by 
the  snowy  range  of  Mont  Blanc,  displaying  a  charm  of 
landscape  which  causes  one  to  wonder  if  any  resources 
of  beauty  or  magnificence  are  reserved  for  the  enchant- 
ments of  the  heavenly  land. 

At  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  lake,  on  an  isolated 
rock  connected  by  a  bridge  with  the  shore,  stands  the 
Castle  of  Chillon,  now  only  a  military  arsenal,  but  for 
nearly  a  thousand  years  a  stronghold  in  whose  gloomy 
dungeons  have  been  incarcerated  the  victims  of  petty 
tyranny  and  religious  bigotry.  Here,  in  830,  Louis  le 
Debonnaire  imprisoned  the  Abbe*  of  Corcier.  Here  many 
of  the  eai-ly  reformers  were  chained  to  the  dungeon 
walls,  and  in  more  recent  times  prisoners  of  state  have 
trod  the  stony  floors;  and  here  are  shown,  to  this  day, 
the  footprints  of  Bonnivard,  consigned  to  six  years  of 
imprisonment  by  the  tyrannical  duke  of  Savoy  in  1530. 


MONT   BLANC   AND  THE   MER   DE  GLACE.  23 

"  Chillon !  thy  prison  is  a  holy  place, 

And  thy  sad  floor  an  altar,— for  'twas  trod 

Until  his  very  steps  have  left  a  trace, 
Worn,  as  if  the  cold  pavement  were  a  sod, 

By  Bonnivard! — may  none  those  marks  efface! 
For  they  appeal  from  tyranny  to  God." 

Prisoner  of  Chillon. 

The  old  city  of  Geneva  is  separated  from  the  new  by 
the  Rhone,  whose  deep  blue  waters  shoot  beneath  the 
six  connecting  bridges  with  the  swiftness  of  an  arrow. 
The  Rhone  enters  the  lake  at  the  opposite  extremity 
turbid  with  the  sediments  brought  down  by  the  torrents 
born  of  a  hundred  dissolving  glaciers.  These  sediments, 
settling  in  the  lake,  have  filled  it  up  for  a  distance  of 
thirteen  miles,  to  Bex,  from  its  ancient  limits.  The  ge- 
ologist can  scarcely  resist  the  reflection  that  this  work 
is  not  of  such  magnitude  as  to  defy  the  powers  of  imagi- 
nation to  grasp  the  time  required  for  its  performance; 
and  yet  this  is  all  that  the  river  has  accomplished  since 
the  last  geological  revolution.  To  the  prophetic  eye  of 
science  it  appears  equally  certain  that  the  work  of  filling 
the  lake  completely  must  be  accomplished  in  some  finite 
period. 

The  Rhone  itself  issues  as  a  gray  torrent  of  snow- 
water from  an  ice-cavern  at  the  foot  of  the  great  Rhone- 
glacier,  above  which  rises  the  Galenstock  to  the  height 
of  nearly  twelve  thousand  feet.  In  the  language  of  the 
ancients,  this  river  was  said  to  issue  "  from  the  gates  of 
eternal  night,  at  the  foot  of  the  pillar  of  the  sun."  From 
this  spot  it  pursues  a  journey  of  five  hundred  miles  to 
the  Mediterranean. 

Never  to  be  forgotten  is  the  first  full  view  of  a  range 


24  SPARKS   FEOM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

of  mountains  capped  with  eternal  snows.  It  would  be 
a  calamity  not  to  gain  this  first  view  from  the  city  of 
Geneva.  We  may  have  been  in  the  place  three  days,  or 
a  week;  but  though  we  know  the  Mont  Blanc  range 
should  be  visible,  the  jealous  clouds  have  interposed  an 
impenetrable  veil.  To-day,  however,  a  purifying  influ- 
ence has  gone  through  the  air,  and  the  vapors  have 
seemed  to  dissolve  before  it.  The  sun  has  now  just  dis- 
appeared behind  the  Jura  range.  We  saunter  from  the 
dinner-table  down  to  the  Quai,  which  faces  eastward 
toward  Mont  Blanc.  There  the  long-sought  vision  of 
glory  is  revealed.*  This  is  indeed  the  first  view  of  moun- 
tains mantled  in  perpetual  snow.  Nothing  like  it  have 
we  ever  seen.  There  is  no  other  terrestrial  glory  with 
which  to  compare  it.  Exclamations  there  are  none.  The 
instincts  of  the  mind  and  soul  consign  all  adjectives  to 
contempt.  We  can  only  gaze,  and  wonder,  and  enjoy. 
We  are  transfixed.  Our  most  expressive  language  is 
silent  admiration. 

Must  we  mock  this  transcendent  scene  with  a  descrip- 
tion? Yonder  in  the  distant  horizon  stretches  the  ser- 
rated crest  of  the  Mont  Blanc  range.  It  is  all  luminous 
with  the  light  of  the  setting  sun.  Its  brilliancy  is  more 
dazzling  than  crystal.  It  looms  up  behind  the  darkened 
intervening  hills  like  the  very  parapet  of  heaven  above 
the  earthly  horizon.  It  is  so  unlike  everything  else  seen 
upon  the  earth  that  it  seems  to  be  not  of  the  earth  —  a 
very  vision  of  supernal  glory. 

Among  these  Alpine  summits  it  is  not  possible  to 
mistake  the  sovereign  mountain.  At  the  right,  Mont  Blanc 
lifts  his  regal  front  highest,  and  stands  at  the  head  of 
*  See  Frontispiece. 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE   MER    DE   GLACE.  25 

the  column.  Next  to  the  left  are  the  Aiguilles  du  Midi, 
and  next  come  the  Grandes  Jorasses  and  the  Dent  du 
Geant.  Some  distance  below  these  crystal  summits  still 
blazing  in  sunlight,  float  fleeces  of  cloudy  drapery,  like 
vestments  dropped  from  the  balconies  of  heaven.  In 
front  of  this  range,  and  at  a  lower  level,  shoot  up  the 
pinnacles  of  the  Aiguilles  Rouges;  and  still  more  in  the 
foreground,  wrapped  in  sunset  shadow,  rise  the  Mole, 
like  a  pyramid  from  the  plain,  the  snowy  summits  of 
the  Aiguilles  d'Argentiere  and  the  broad  Buet. 

Now  pausing  to  breathe,  we  notice  the  long  ridge 
of  the  Voirons  closing  in  upon  the  extreme  left,  as  the 
Great  and  Little  Saleve  uplift  their  rock-ribbed  forms 
upon  the  right.  Still  nearer  is  the  dark  mass  of  foliage 
which  shelters  the  city  suburbs  and  fringes  the  further 
border  of  the  lake;  and  here,  immediately  before  us, 
stretches  lake  Leman,  clear  and  placid,  whose  very  name 
is  redolent  of  poetry,  and  whose  darkening  surface  is 
now  animated  with  the  movements  of  a  hundred  pleas- 
ui'e-skiffs  which 

"  Drop  the  light  drip  of  the  suspended  oar," 

while  their  merry  occupants  drink  in  the  music  of  each 
other's  souls. 

But  while  we  gaze  the  twilight  shadows  thicken. 
See!  Not  only  are  the  Mole  and  the  Buet  sunken  in 
shadow,  but  the  broad  line  of  night  has  crept  up  the 
snowy  flanks  of  the  higher  mountains.  Their  summits 
ai-e  still  smiling  sunset  adieus;  but  the  shadow  of  Jura 
glides  steadily  up  the  Alps.  Lo!  now  the  glory  of  Mont 
Blanc  is  dimmed.  An  ashy  paleness  steals  insensibly 
over  the  gem-lit  brow  of  the  mountain  monarch.  His 


26  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

form  fades  by  degrees  into  the  dull  hue  of  the  back- 
ground sky.  The  snowy  range  is  no  longer  discernible  — 
vanished  from  mortal  eyes  into  the  very  heaven  to  which 
its  supernal  glories  seemed  to  belong.  It  is  sunset  — 
it  is  twilight  —  it  is  evening;  and  we  turn  with  a  feel- 
ing of  revulsion  and  discontent  from  the  splendors  of 
Nature  to  the  jargon  of  the  babbling  throng  in  the 
street. 

The  highway  from  Geneva  to  Chamonix  is  a  finely 
macadamized  turnpike.  Communication  is  .maintained 
during  the  summer  by  means  of  lines  of  daily  stages 
known  as  "  diligences."  Between  the  proprietors  of 
these  a  sharp  competition  exists  for  the  patronage  of 
the  traveling  public,  whose  plethoric  but  ever-bleeding 
purses  sustain  not  only  the  lines  of  diligences,  but  also 
half  the  other  business  of  the  city.  English-speaking 
travelers  are  a  chief  reliance  of  Genevese  tradespeople 
and  proprietors  of  means  of  conveyance.  But  of  all 
nationalities,  the  American  is  regarded  as  the  fattest 
and  most  lawful  game;  and  the  vultures  of  trade  gather 
around  him  with  an  attentiveness  which  may  be  very  flat- 
tering, though  certainly  very  expensive.  The  idea  ob- 
tains that  the  purse  of  the  American  is  always  aching 
with  distension,  and  that  he  is  perfectly  willing  to  re- 
ceive politely  offered  relief.  It  is  naively  admitted  by 
Genevese  tradespeople  that  they  have  four  prices  in  as- 
cending order:— the  first  for  citizens;  the  second  for 
Germans  and  Italians;  the  third  for  the  English,  and 
the  fourth  for  Americans,  whom  they  declare  it  right 
to  tax  one  hundred  per  cent  above  the  citizen. 

Accordingly,  the  agents  of  the  several  lines  of  dili- 
gences posted  before  the  doors  of  their  offices,  along 


MONT   BLANC    AND   THE   MER    DE   GLACE.  27 

the  Grand  Quai,  ply  every  stranger  who  ventures  through 
their  precincts.  The  fare  to  Chamonix  and  back,  if  you 
are  quartered  in  a  hotel,  is  thirty-six  francs,  of  which  six 
go  to  your  landlord.  There  is  little  difference  in  the  ac- 
commodations of  the  different  lines.  In  front,  under- 
neath the  banquette  where  the  driver  sits,  with  room 
for  two  others,  is  a  closed  coupe  with  a  seat  for  three. 
The  body  of  the  vehicle  is  occupied  by  three  other  seats, 
each  with  room  for  three.  Underneath  the  rear  is  a 
capacious  repository  for  baggage. 

At  seven  o1  clock  in  the  morning  we  repair  to  our  dili- 
gence and  take  possession  of  the  seats  previously  engaged. 
Six  horses  whirl  us  out  of  town  at  the  top  of  their  speed. 
The  route  lies  up  the  valley  of  the  Arve.  The  scenery 
at  first  is  lacking  in  features  of  striking  interest.  At 
Bonneville,  15  miles,  we  pass,  to  the  left,  the  pyramidal 
mountain  of  the  Mole,  over  6,000  feet  high  (6,128  feet). 
At  Balme  two  cannon  are  planted  by  the  road-side,  which 
for  a  fee  of  one  franc  will  undertake  to  wake  the  echoes 
in  the  high  cliffs  opposite. 

The  mountains  now  rise  in  loftier  grandeur  upon  the 
right  and  left,  and  flocculent  clouds  hang  on  the  red  crags 
or  drip  down  their  precipitous  slopes.  One  cannot  help 
remarking  how  these  wisps  of  vapor  love  to  cling  to  the 
solid  earth.  The  open  atmosphere  above  the  valleys  may 
be  free  from  clouds,  but  they  seldom  cease  to  hover  about 
the  high-lifted  forms  of  the  mountains.  I  am  inclined  to 
think  they  are  drawn  to  these  masses  by  what  we  call 
gravitation, —  as  light  particles,  floating  on  the  surface  of 
a  vessel  of  water,  are  drawn  from  all  directions  toward  a 
larger  floating  body. 

Approaching    Magland,   a  striking   phenomenon    bursts 


28  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST  S    HAMMER. 

upon  us.  A  stream  of  water  gushes  from  the  vertical 
rock  wall  on  the  left,  and  plunges  down  500  feet,  as  if 
an  immense  tank  had  been  tapped  and  the  plug  drawn 
out.  Above  rise  the  Aiguilles  des  Varens,  nearly  9,000 
feet  (8,960)  high.  These,  undoubtedly,  gather  the  pre- 
cipitation which  supplies  the  flow, —  a  small  lake  (lac  de 
Flaine)  upon  the  heights,  probably  serving,  as  De  Saus- 
sure  suggested,  as  a  reservoir  to  maintain  the  constancy 
of  the  supply. 

Glancing  ahead,  we  soon  descry,  at  the  distance  of  a 
quarter  of  a  mile,  another  cascade, —  the  cascade  of  Arpe- 
naz.  This  pours  from  the  brink  of  the  precipice,  plung- 
ing sheer  into  the  atmosphere  at  the  height  of  860  feet, 
and  separating  into  vapor  before  reaching  the  solid  ground. 

Alpine  characteristics  grow  more  emphasized.  The 
muddy  Arve  rushes  past  us  with  a  noisier  utterance, — 
rippling,  eddying,  plunging  about  the  rocky  fragments 
which  have  invaded  its  bed.  The  bottoms  are  strewed 
with  the  traces  of  a  recent  flood, —  stones,  gravel,  and 
mud  gathered  in  winrows  and  deposited  at  elevations 
several  feet  above  the  present  level  of  the  stream.  The 
whole  valley  is  in  a  state  of  devastation.  Man  has  here 
yielded  dominion  to  the  caprices  of  torrent  and  flood. 

At  St.  Martin  the  highway  makes  a  sharp  curve  to 
the  left,  and  the  valley  gorge  opens  a  vista  in  a  new 
direction.  Suddenly  Mont  Blanc  stands  up  before  us, — 
white,  lofty,  majestic,  and  overpowering.  It  is  like  an- 
other apparition  from  the  celestial  regions.  We  at  once 
recognize  a  difference  between  our  emotions  and  those 
experienced  at  Geneva.  There,  the  scene  was  grand  and 
exhilarating;  but  beauty  and  softness  and  distance  were 
so  blended  with  it  that  the  soul  preserved  A  comparative 


MONT   BLANC    AND   THE   MER    DE   GLACE.  29 

calm.  Here,  the  monster  mountain  rises  apparently  in 
our  immediate  presence, —  lofty,  brilliant,  vast,  majestic, 
and  mighty.  The  sentiment  of  sublimity  is  mingled  with 
a  feeling  of  nascent  fear.  Even  the  heart  begins  to  leap, 
sympathetic  with  the  external  incitements.  The  impres- 
sion is  so  different  from  the  former  one  that  the  scene 
appears  new.  But  there  is  the  same  supernal  glory  in 
it.  The  white,  immaculate,  luminous  mass  is  so  unlike 
anything  earthly  which  we  have  seen  that  it  appears  as 
an  appurtenance  of  the  blue  sky  against  which  it  rests. 
I  think,  if  I  had  not  first  seen  Mont  Blanc  under  the 
mellowing  guise  of  distance,  and  the  vision  had  first  burst 
upon  me  at  this  spot,  I  should  have  bowed  to  the  ground 
before  it.  The  power  of  that  presence  can  only  be  felt. 
I  wonder  not  that  uncultured  nations  pay  adoration  to 
mountains.  I  wonder  that  any  cultured  man  can  come 
into  the  presence  of  Mont  Blanc  without  being  crushed 
to  the  earth  by  the  weight  of  the  sentiment  of  worship. 

Still,  the  appearance  of  proximity  is  deceptive.  Mont 
Blanc,  though  seemingly  within  half  a  mile,  is  removed 
not  less  than  12  miles  in  a  direct  line;  and  Mont  For- 
claz,  itself  nearly  5,000  feet  high  (4,911  feet),  rises  almost 
unnoticed  in  the  intervening  distance.  This  is  a  char- 
acteristic deception  experienced  from  the  colossal  dimen- 
sions of  the  features  of  Alpine  scenery.  First  views  sel- 
dom respond  to  our  preconceptions  in  respect  to  measure- 
ments. What  seems  a  half  hour's  walk  will  prove  to  be 
a  wearisome  five  hours'  climb.  The  cascade  which,  at 
home,  you  would  give,  by  estimate,  a  height  of  fifty  or 
a  hundred  feet,  you  will  find,  by  measurement,  to  fall 
five  hundred  or  a  thousand  feet. 

At   the   Baths  of  St.  Gervais  we   pause  for  a  repast. 


30  SPARKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGISTS   HAMMER. 

Sulphur  springs  and  a  fine  cascade  (cascade  de  Crepin) 
are  near.  The  mountains  now  crowd  down  upon  the 
highway.  The  deep,  narrow  gorge  through  which  the 
Arve  comes,  with  shouts  and  summersaults,  down  from 
the  valley  of  Cbamonix,  serves  only  for  the  torrent's  ac- 
commodation ;  and  the  French  government  has  chiseled 
a  giddy  roadway  along  the  face  of  the  perpendicular  cliff 
of  the  Little  Tete  Noir  (5,800  feet),— giddy,  but  secure, 
and  worthy  of  France.  The  nose  of  the  mountain,  how- 
ever, is  at  length  pierced  by  a  tunnel,  the  exit  of  which 
happens  to  be  within  a  few  feet  of  an  old  Roman  tunnel, 
recently  exposed  to  view.  The  latter  is  about  eight  feet 
high  and  as  many  in  width. 

Soon  we  have  reached  a  miserable  village,  called  Les 
Ouches  (3,143  feet).  The  village  of  Chamonix  lies  before 
us.  At  our  right  is  uplifted  the  tremendous  form  of 
Mont  Blanc,  dazzling  in  the  afternoon  sunlight.  It  seems 
incredible  that  these  immaculate  and  shining  solitudes 
are  still  so  remote.  But  there  hang  the  clouds,  half  way 
down  the  mountain  sides.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  a  real 
glacier  greets  our  eyes.  The  long  coveted  gratification 
is  at  length  granted.  This  is  the  glacier  of  Taconnay, 
half  hid  in  its  deep  excavated  valley,  but  revealing  itself 
as  a  white  snake  like  form  crawling  down  from  the  home 
of  perpetual  snows.  A  further  advance,  however,  reveals 
the  existence  of  an  intervening  valley,  which  holds  the 
shrunken  form  of  another  ancient  accumulation  of  ice. 
This  is  the  Glacier  de  la  Gria.  A  few  minutes  further 
and  the  long,  swelling  form  of  the  Glacier  des  Bossons 
comes  into  sight. 

Are  these,  then,  the  glaciers?  We  thought  them  broad 
fields  of  almost  impassable  ice,  and  here  they  lie  revealed 


MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  MER  DE  GLACE.      31 

merely  as  snowdrifts  in  Alpine  valleys  but  a  few  rods  in 
width.  No  deception  could  be  more  complete.  It  is  our 
apprehension  that  disappoints  us;  it  is  enlarged.  Let  us 
reserve  our  opinions  till  we  have  laid  our  hand  upon  the 
cold  nose  of  the  glacier,  and  made  the  attempt  to  scramble 
over  its  back. 

As  we  pass  the  village  and  Glacier  des  Bossons,  our  sat- 
isfaction increases.  The  lower  extremity  of  the  glacier 
lies  across  the  river  bottom  at  the  distance  of  about  a  mile. 
It  seems  to  have  come  down  to  the  homes  of  men  to  de- 
mand apology  for  intrusion  upon  its  ancient  domain. 
And  yet  this  terminal  point  is  at  half  the  altitude  of 
Mount  Washington  above  the  sea.  We  can  here  discern 
distinctly  the  tremendous  pile  of  detrital  material  which 
the  glacier  has  brought  down  and  piled  about  its  lower 
termination.  We  see  these  rocky  ruins  stretched  all  the 
way  across  the  mile  which  separates  the  village  from  the 
glacier;  and  thus  make  our  first  note  on  the  evidences 
of  glacier  diminution. 

The  next  glacier  to  come  in  view  is  des  Bois,  which 
likewise  creeps  quite  down  among  the  habitations  of  men. 
But  the  village  of  Chamonix  lies  between  us,  and  we  at 
length  dismount  from  the  diligence,  after  a  magnificent 
ride  of  fifty  miles  in  seven  hours  and  a  half.  Chamo- 
nix (3,445  feet,  2,500  inhabitants)  is  a  bright  and  cheerful 
village  on  the  surface,  but  with  a  great  deal  of  antiquity 
just  beneath  the  whitewash  and  paint.  Fifteen  thousand 
visitors  annually  ask  for  shelter  beneath  the  spreading 
roofs  of  its  numerous  but  modern  and  entirely  comforta- 
ble hotels.  The  needs  of  these  visitors  supply  almost  the 
sole  occupation  for  the  inhabitants.  Of  the  eight  first- 
class  hotels,  seven  belong  to  a  single  company.  The 


32  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

charges  are  uniform,  and  when  we  aggregate  all  the  par- 
ticulars, are  rather  high.  The  business  of  the  guides  is 
also  reduced  to  system,  uniformity  and  certainty.  Charges 
for  various  trips,  with  and  without  mules,  are  specifically 
regulated  by  law,  and  the  Chief  of  the  Guides  is  charged 
with  its  execution.  There  is,  even  here,  however,  one  un- 
certain element  in  all  calculations,  and  that  is  the  "  pour 
boire,"  or  gratuity  which  the  employ^  always  expects  in 
addition  to  the  legal  allowance.  The  lavish  practices  of 
American  travelers  have  swollen  this  tax  from  a  few 
centimes  to  one,  two  or  five  francs,  and  has  educated  the 
guides  to  a  degree  of  trained  ingenuity  in  devising  pre- 
texts for  extra  charges.  About  three-fourths  of  the  vis- 
itors to  Chamonix  come  from  Great  Britain  and  America, 
the  remainder  are  mostly  French  with  an  admixture  of 
Italians,  Russians  and  Spaniards.  The  English  language 
is  quite  universally  spoken  in  the  hotels,  though  the 
French  is  the  language  of  domestic  intercourse,  and, 
strangely  enough,  the  exclusive  dialect  of  the  guides.  I 
did  not  meet  a  person  in  Chamonix  who  was  able  to  trans- 
act business  in  the  German  language. 

The  snowy  summits  of  the  high  Alps  now  hedge  us  in 
on  every  side.  On  the  southeast  is  the  Mont  Blanc  range, 
rising  from  our  very  door-steps,  with  Aiguille  du  Gouter 
and  Dome  du  Gouter  resting  on  the  shoulder  of  Mont 
Blanc.  Dome  du  Gouter,  from  our  position,  simulates  the 
character  of  the  monarch  himself,  for  it  stands  between 
us.  On  the  northwest  side  stand  the  Flegere  (5,957  feet) 
and  the  Bre"vent  (8,284  feet),  bold  buttresses  of  the 
Aiguilles  Rouges,  which  rear  their  red  pinnacles  in  the 
distance  behind  these  mountains. 


MONT   BLANC   AND   THE   MEE   DE   GLACE.  33 

*     *    "Above  us  are  the  Alps, 
The  palaces  of  Nature,  whose  vast  walls 

Have  pinnacled  in  clouds  their  snowy  scalps 
Arid  throned  eternity  in  icy  halls 
Of  cold  sublimity,  where  forms  and  falls 

The  avalanche  —  the  thunderbolt  of  snow! 
All  that  expands  the  spirit,  yet  appals, 

Gather  around  these  summits,  as  to  show 
How  earth  may  pierce  to  heaven,  yet  leave  vain  man  below." 
GMlde  Harold,  III,  Ixii. 

Following  the  prevailing  custom,  our  first  excursion 
shall  be  to  the  Montanvert  (6,302  feet).  This  is  a  buttress 
of  the  Aiguille  de  Charmoz  (11,293  feet),  and  is  visited 
exclusively  to  obtain  a  view  of  the  Mer  de  Glace.  For 
this  ascent  a  guide  is  unnecessary,  and  should  we  need  one 
for  the  continuance  of  the  trip,  we  may  take  the  risk 
of  engaging  him  upon  the  mountain.  Our  vigor  is  so 
exuberant  in  the  youth  of  our  experience,  that  we  shall 
scorn  equally  mules  and  guides. 

The  well  constructed  bridle-path  leads  in  a  perpetual 
zigzag  up  the  mountain.  Passing  first,  the  debris  of  a 
series  of  avalanches,  which  have  mown  long  avenues 
through  a  forest  of  firs,  we  pause  for  refreshment  at  the 
Fontaine  de  Caillet.  Here  we  obtain  ice-cold  water  — 
which  the  guides  around  declare  to  be  unsafe  for  a  bev- 
erage,—  having  less  regard,  we  suspect,  for  our  health 
than  for  the  sale  of  the  bottled  beverages  within  the 
cabin.  At  any  rate,  we  conclude  again  to  take  the  risks. 
Here  is  a  rude  chalet  from  which  the  traveler  may  rein- 
force his  energies  on  red  raspberries,  vin  ordinaire  or 
cognac,  according  to  his  disposition.  Here,  also,  is  kept 
a  living  chamois,  which  is  shown  to  visitors  for  a  trifling 
consideration. 
3 


34  SPAKKS   FKOM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMEK. 

Refreshed,  we  resume  our  march.  The  sun  has  crept 
around  on  our  side  of  the  mountain,  and  the  extract  of 
muscle  begins  to  ooze  copiously  through  the  pores  of  the 
skin.  Spruce  Americans  ride  past  us  on  their  donkeys, 
intelligibly  conscious  of  the  awkwardness  of  their  atti- 
tudes and  movements.  The  characteristic  English  wom- 
an,—  thick,  gelatinous  and  dowdy,  —  planted  on  a  saddle 
two  feet  broad,  capers  along  in  the  procession,  while  her 
John,  whiskered  after  the  stereotyped  mutton-leg  fashion, 
clad  in  his  Scotch  jeans,  with  a  wild  flower  in  his  button- 
hole, and  lorgnette  swung  from  his  shoulder,  perspires 
along  the  mule-path  in  her  rear.  But  every  situation 
has  its  compensations.  Even  now  approaches  a  lad  whose 
mien,  and  whose  very  position  in  the  company  which  he 
leads,  proclaim  that  he  has  crossed  the  Atlantic  from  a 
country  which  has  celebrated  the  centennial  of  its  inde- 
pendence. He  is  full  of  centennial.  Fellow  countryman, 
a  salutation !  Just  behind  is  "  pa,"  upon  his  mule,  full 
of  pride  over  his  young  American;  and  alongside  is  a 
pretty,  jaunty  young  lady,  whose  profusion  of  smiles  and 
conspicuous  defiance  of  lookers-on  proclaim  her  ready  for 
anything  prohibited  to  European  girls.  There  is  no  mis- 
taking it;  this  is  the  daughter.  This  is  the  "  American 
young  woman  abroad."  There  is  nothing  so  fresh,  so 
charming,  so  inspiring,  so  satisfying,  in  all  the  breadth 
of  the  continent,  as  the  American  young  woman.  The 
man  that  could  see  this  sylph  float  past  him,  or  listen  to 
the  music  of  her  prattle,  —  so  full  of  nonsense,  and  yet 
so  full  of  meaning,  —  without  feeling  moved  to  throw 
his  hat  in  the  air  and  hurrah  for  the  American  girl,  is 
only  fit  to  lead  a  mule  by  the  bridle.  Young  man  — 
old  man  —  you  will  never  appreciate  your  blessings  until 


MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  HER  DE  GLACE.      35 

you  find  yourself  in  Switzerland,  surrounded  by  those 
Swiss  peasant  women,  —  thick-set  and  nut-brown  as  the 
cows  with  which  they  consort,  with  form  like  a  bag  of 
meal,  and  gait  like  that  of  a  Muscovy  duck. 

Outstripped  so  easily  by  our  travelers  on  mule-back, 
we  almost  regret  our  resolve  to  walk;  but  should  we 
pause  a  few  minutes  in  the  shade  of  the  firs  which  bor- 
der our  path,  many  a  pedestrian  would  also  come  up 
to  report  as  a  companion. 

At  length  the  stone-built  house  of  refreshment,  at  the 
end  of  the  path,  shines  through  the  trees.  We  stand 
upon  the  brink  of  a  deep,  rocky  valley,  and  look  down 
upon  the  surface  of  the  world-famed  Mer  de  Glace.  We 
survey  it  for  a  moment,  and  our  throats  choke  with  dis- 
appointment and  chagrin.  How  painfully  beneath  our 
anticipations!  A  pocket  affair,  indeed!  And  it  seems 
incredible  that  anyone  could  need  a  guide  to  cross  this 
piece  of  ice.  We,  at  least,  will  assert  our  independence. 

But  the  general  perspective  is  grandiose  and  satisfac- 
tory. The  steeple-like  pinnacles  of  the  mountains  on 
either  hand  are  overpowering  in  magnificence.  On  the 
right,  as  we  look  up  the  Mer  de  Glace,  is  the  Aiguille 
de  Charmoz  (11,293  feet),  eleven  thousand  three  hundred 
feet  high;  on  the  left,  the  Aiguille  du  Dru  (11,527  feet), 
eleven  thousand  five  hundred  feet  high ;  and  directly  before 
us,  but  more  remote,  the  enormous  masses  of  the  Grandes 
Jorasses  (13,786  feet),  thirteen  thousand  eight  hundred  feet 
in  height.  From  this  direction  we  gather  a  more  adequate 
idea  of  the  magnitude  of  the  glacier-field  before  us.  Two 
miles  up  the  stream  of  ice  —  it  seems,  indeed,  but  half  a 
mile  —  the  glacier  widens  and  bifurcates.  The  tributary 
from  the  right,  visible  only  at  its  termination,  is  the  Giant 


36  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Glacier,  which  stretches  five  and  a  half  miles  to  the  sum- 
mit of  Mont  Maudit,  gathering  into  itself  all  the  snows 
over  a  vast  expanse.  The  tributary  from  the  left  bifur- 
cates again  into  Glacier  de  Lechaud,  whose  axis  is  nearly 
a  prolongation  of  that  of  the  Mer  de  Glace,  and  Glacier 
de  Talefre,  in  the  midst  of  which  rises  a  soil-covered 
mass  of  rock  (9,143  feet)  nine  thousand  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  above  the  sea,  walled  in  on  all  sides  by  moun-. 
tains,  and  adorned  in  August  with  a  display  of  several 
species  of  Alpine  flowers.  It  is  hence  named  the  Jardin, 
or  Garden. 

From  our  position  we  now  take  a  more  contemplative 
survey  of  the  features  of  the  Mer  de  Glace.  "  Its  surface," 
says  de  Saussure,  "  resembles  that  of  a  sea  which  has 
become  suddenly  frozen, —  not  during  a  tempest,  but  at 
the  instant  when  the  wind  has  subsided,  and  the  waves, 
although  very  high,  have  become  blunted  and  rounded. 
These  great  waves  are  nearly  parallel  to  the  length  of 
the  glacier,  and  intersected  by  transverse  crevasses,  the 
interior  of  which  appears  blue,  while  the  ice  is  white  on 
its  external  surface."  Montanvert  has  always  been  a  favor- 
ite point  of  observation  and  study  of  this  glacier.  The 
illustrious  Goethe  visited  the  spot  in  1779;  and  he  men- 
tions in  his  Journal  the  fact  that  an  Englishman  named 
Blaire  erected  here  a  hut,  from  the  window  of  which  he 
and  his  guests  could  survey  the  sea  of  ice.  This  hut 
still  exists,  and  affords  accommodation  for  the  guides.  A 
projecting  rock  is  still  shown  where  two  other  English- 
men, Windham  and  Pococke,  as  early  as  1740,  found  shel- 
ter during  the  night. 

We  are  now  rested  from  our  weariness,  and,  follov/ing 
the  established  fashion,  we  should  proceed  to  cross  the 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE    MEE    DE   GLACE.  37 

Mer  de  Glace.  But  our  ambition  is  not  satisfied  to  ac- 
complish what  everybody  else  is  capable  of  achieving. 
Above  us  shoots  the  needling  pinnacle  of  Charmoz,  the 
flutings  of  whose  precipitous  slopes  are  laden  with  drifted 
snow.  We  dare  not  think  of  scaling  this  mountain  spire, 
but  here  is  a  moderate  acclivity  clothed  with  grass  and 
low  bushes,  which  tempts  us  in  that  direction.  Who  vol- 
unteers for  a  scramble  up  a  more  considerable  height? 

There  is  no  pathway  1.  u-e, —  save  occasionally  a  goat- 
path  zigzagging  aimlessly, —  and  our  goal,  if  we  have  one, 
leads  over  a  field  which  it  would  be  temerity,  if  not  an 
impossibility,  for  anyone  to  traverse  encumbered  with 
those  entanglements  known  as  female  apparel.  The  ladies, 
perforce,  must  remain  behind.  They  may  amuse  them- 
selves with  collecting  Alpine  flowers  and  putting  them  in 
press. 

To  relieve  the  ladies  from  wearisome  waiting,  and  from 
the  anxiety  of  a  prolonged  absence,  we  scramble  hastily  up 
the  slope,  to  accomplish  as  soon  as  possible  all  that  we 
shall  dare  undertake.  Alas,  how  soon  breath  fails  when 
man  attempts  to  kick  against  the  force  of  gi'avitation! 
Almost  at  the  outset  we  find  ourselves  excessively  disa- 
bled. We  stretch  ourselves  out  on  the  ground  like  dead 
men,  and  pant  with  all  our  might.  Lying  with  our  faces 
turned  toward  heaven,  a  raven  black  as  night  sails  over 
us  and  calls  out  Kaw  !  and  sails  on  in  disdain.  A  few 
minutes  suffice  to  revive  us.  Then  we  rise,  and  foolishly 
repeat  our  scramble  and  our  exhaustion.  But  we  make 
rapid  headway. 

For  some  distance  we  find  the  surface  covered  with 
dwarf  huckleberries  (Vaccinium),  Alpine  roses  (Rhododen- 
dron), and  heaths  (Erica),  with  a  scattered  intermixture 


38  SPAKKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

of  grasses  and  a  few  other  plants.  Trees  we  left  at 
Montanvert.  These  shrubs  continue  to  diminish  in  size 
as  we  ascend,  until  the  huckleberries  form  a  low,  thipk, 
fur-like  mat.  These  still  grow  shorter  and  shorter,  and 
then  abruptly  disappear.  We  are  on  the  limit  of  flower- 
ing vegetation.  A  desolate  region  of  naked  rocks  sur- 
rounds us.  These  are  not  boulders  or  transported  blocks, 
but  the  solid  framework  of  the  mountain  shattered  as  if 
smitten  by  a  colliding  world,  and  hurled  all  over  the 
surface.  Smaller  at  the  lower  level,  they  grow  more 
massive  as  we  ascend.  Some  attain  the  dimensions  of  a 
dwelling-house, —  huge,  angular  blocks  chipped  out  of  the 
mountain  mass.  They  are  all  strongly  laminated,  and 
belong  to  the  class  known  as  mica-schist.  At  length  we 
near  some  frowning  cliffs,  and  observe  that  the  stratifica- 
tion of  these  rocks  is  nearly  vertical.  Their  thin,  sharp 
layers  sometimes  present  their  edges  at  the  surface  like 
an  array  of  knives.  Over  these  angular  rocks  we  clam- 
ber with  great  difficulty  and  danger  of  bruised  shin-bones. 
The  sloping  crest  of  the  mountain  is  not  far  at  our  right. 
This  we  succeed  in  scaling,  and  now  the  panorama  of  the 
valley  of  Chamonix  is  spread  out  before  us.  A  fresh 
breeze  meets  us  on  this  crest.  The  clouds  are  kissing 
and  embracing  the  unresponsive  rocks  on  every  hand. 
They  are  beneath  us  and  above  us.  They  hasten  past  us 
as  if  unconcerned  at  our  presence.  Nay,  they  have  em- 
braced us.  Avaunt!  cold  fog.  Thou  art  not  the  rosy 
cloud  which  from  the  valley  we  have  seen  sleeping  on 
the  bosom  of  the  mountain. 

"'Tis  distance  lends  enchantment  to  the  view." 
But  here,  with  all  the  exhilaration  of  the  situation,  we 


MONT   BLANC   AND  THE  MEE   DE   GLACE.  39 

make  one  disheartening  observation.  This  rude  monument 
of  stones  proclaims  the  fact  that  others  have  preceded 
us.  From  what  direction,  or  within  what  period,  no  re- 
cord reveals.  This,  then,  is  not  the  satisfaction  of  our 
ambition.  Onward  to  Charmoz!  Charmoz  stands  now  at 
our  left.  On  our  front  the  form  of  the  mountain  slopes 
rapidly  down  toward  the  valley  of  Chamonix.  Behind  us 
is  the  steep  slope  which  we  have  ascended,  and  which 
stretches  down  to  the  border  of  the  Mer  de  Glace.  This 
crest  on  which  we  stand  is  "  The  Angle,"  and,  ever  nar- 
rowing, leads  up  to  the  pillared  and  snow-flecked  heights 
of  Charmoz.  That  is  our  direction.  But  mighty  rocks 
and  towering  pi'ecipices  obstruct  our  path.  Some  of  the 
precipices  we  have  to  scale.  Sometimes  we  crawl  along 
the  face  of  an  escarpment  upon  a  shelf  of  rock  gradu- 
ally ascending  to  the  summit.  Sometimes  from  such  a 
situation  we  are  compelled  to  retreat.  Could  we  see  each 
other  in  these  hazardous  attitudes,  I  fear  we  should  be 
led  to  practice  eloquently  the  ai't  of  dissuasion;  and  could 
those  patient  ladies,  pressing  Alpine  flowers  at  Montanvert, 
be  once  endowed  with  the  gift  of  clairvoyance,  I  am  sure 
that  some  of  us  would  make  excuses  to  return. 

But  adventure  acts  as  an  intoxicant.  We  often  per- 
form deeds  without  fear,  the  very  thought  of  which  after- 
ward produces  ^  shudder.  We  have  the  madness  —  not 
the  malady  —  of  the  mountains.  And  so  we  continue  to 
climb  toward  Charmoz.  Ice  on  the  right  hand;  ice  on 
the  left  ;  clouds  above  us  and  clouds  below.  The  ragged 
crest  grows  narrower,  its  downward  slopes  more  precipi- 
tous. Charmoz  is  in  front  of  us  and  winks  approval  of 
our  hardihood.  Stiff-necked,  haughty  pinnacle,  uplifted  in 
the  serene  air!  what  power  upbore  you  to  that  un- 


40  SPARKS   FKOM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

approachable  altitude?  Ah,  the  answer  to  our  question  is 
recorded  on  your  grey,  pilastered  sides.  If  we  can- 
not place  foot  upon  your  head,  we  are  near  enough 
to  read  your  record.  We  can  see  your  vertical  sheets  of 
rock,  with  their  projecting  angles  running  up  the  giddy 
spire  like  the  lines  of  masonry  on  the  high-towered  cathe- 
dral at  Strasbourg.  Old  Charmoz,  after  all,  is  not  erect, 
but  prostrate  on  his  side.  Weathered  and  battered  and 
wasted  by  the  wear  of  centuries,  these  salient  pinnacles 
are  but  the  protruding  ribs  of  a  mountain  skeleton. 

We  have  discovered  the  way  to  Charmoz,  but,  like 
Jacques  Balmat,  on  the  discovery  of  the  path  to  Mont 
Blanc,  we  shall  not  travel  over  it  the  first  day.  Our 
mountain  crest  which  leads  to  Charmoz  has  thinned  to  a 
knife-edge.  On  each  side  we  look  down,  almost  vertically, 
about  two  thousand  feet,  upon  some  rocks  which  would 
have  a  tendency  to  abate  too  suddenly  our  agreeable  ex- 
citement. We  know  that  we  could  scale  the  pinnacle  of 
Charmoz,  but  we  ought  to  go  back  and  inform  the  ladies 
where  we  might  be  found  in  case  of  any  inadvertence. 

But  we  shall  not  travel  the  same  road  twice.  We  de- 
scend a  declivity  as  steep  as  possible,  directly  to  the  Mer 
de  Glace.  Getting  in  the  track  of  an  old  avalanche,  we 
go  plunging,  sliding,  jumping,  rolling, —  and  so,  literally, 
"  we  go  rolling  home."  Beaching  the  glacier,  we  mount 
its  tremendous  lateral  moraine  —  rising  one  hundred  feet 
above  the  swelling  ice-sea  ;  and  over  boulders,  and  along  the 
shining  faces  of  cliffs  scoured  by  the  moving  ice,  we  pick 
our  way  down  to  the  spot  where  we  left  the  ladies  pressing 
flowers. 

We  now  feel  competent  to  cross  the  Mer  de  Glace  with- 
out the  intervention  of  a  guide.  Declining  many  proffers 


MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  MEE  DE  GLACE.      41 

of  succor  from  this  source,  we  make  our  zigzag  descent 
two  hundred  feet  (210  feet)  to  the  glacier.  Half  way  down 
we  encounter  a  cabin,  wherefrom,  with  further  proffers  of 
guidance,  is  exposed  a  collection  of  pretended  minerals  of 
Mont  Blanc. —  quartz  and  tourmalines  and  amethysts  and 
beryls.  Assured  again  of  the  utter  impossibility  of  cross- 
ing without  a  guide,  we  persist  in  suspecting  the  disinter- 
estedness of  the  counsel. 

The  border  of  the  glacier  presents  an  array  of  obsta- 
cles which  had  been  concealed  from  view.  It  is  a  great 
mistake  to  suppose  that  the  entrance  upon  a  glacier  is 
like  stepping  from  the  sidewalk  into  the  street.  Here  is 
a  belt  some  rods  in  width,  possessing  features  which  defy 
description.  It  is  strewed  with  immense  rounded  frag- 
ments of  alpine  granite,  with  intervening  piles  of  sand 
and  mud  and  ice  and  smaller  rocks.  To  thread  our 
way  between  the  boulders  is  impossible, —  we  must  leap 
the  chasms  from  boulder  to  boulder,  or  climb  directly 
over  them.  Considering  that  these  impediments  are  breast 
high,  and  sometimes  eight  and  ten  feet  high,  and  round 
and  smooth,  the  degree  of  agility  demanded  is  as  extraor- 
dinary as  it  is  real.  Next  we  leap  upon  a  boulder 
which  proves  to  be  a  mass  of  ice  coated  with  sand  and 
mud.  Nay,  the  very  soil  on  which  these  boulders  rest  is 
underlaid  by  ice  as  solid  and  clear  as  crystal.  .Down  we 
leap,  upon  the  grimy  surface  of  the  glacier  at  last,  but 
only  to  find  ourselves  in  a  corner.  Across  our  path 
stretches  an  open  chasm  which  is  almost  too  broad  to 
leap,  and  which  is  overhung  on  right  and  left  by  huge 
boulders.  There  is  no  alternative  ;  we  must  mount 
another  boulder  ;  and  so,  finally,  after  a  wearisome  strug- 
gle, we  are  in  a  position  to  begin  our  work. 


42  SPAKKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Well,  the  glacier  is  under  our  feet  at  length.  It  is 
the  Mer  de  Glace.  We  read  of  this  wonder  of  nature 
when  we  were  boys  in  school,  and  puzzled  over  the  poor 
uninterpretable  pictures  of  it  in  our  text-books.  It  is 
not  so  rough  and  rent  with  fractures  as  we  had  thought. 
The  path  winds  over  its  wave-like  swells  and  around  its 
yawning  crevasses;  and  we  march  on,  thinking  of  the 
depth  of  the  river  of  ice  on  which  we  walk;  of  its  slug- 
gish, crawling  movement  down  toward  the  valley  of 
Chamonix;  of  the  years  which  have  rolled  by  since  the 
ice  under  our  feet  was  fresh-fallen  snow  on  Mont  Man- 
dit;  of  the  terrific  winter  storms  which  howled  about 
the  cradle  of  the  glacier;  of  the  deliberateness  of  all  of 
Nature's  operations.  And  then  we  reflect  how  all  this 
work  was  going  on  before  we  were  in  existence;  and 
how,  when  we  shall  have  ceased  to  appear  among  men, 
Nature's  operations  will  experience  no  check,  but  con- 
tinue to  move  on  in  their  appointed  ways,  steadily,  pa- 
tiently, while  other  generations  of  men  may  come  and 
go.  Here,  far  from  the  glacier's  border,  are  fragments 
of  rocks  riding  in  state  upon  the  glacier's  back,  down 
from  the  region  of  some  high  alpine  cliff,  toward  the 
precincts  of  human  habitation.  These,  like  the  boulders 
of  the  border,  are  formed  of  that  peculiar  species  of  rock 
which  constitutes  the  core  of  the  Alpine  chain.  Here, 
now,  are  those  crevasses  which  create  so  much  of  the 
peril  of  glacier  adventure.  The  crevasse  is  a  fissure  in 
the  mass  of  ice.  Its  direction  on  the  surface  is  gener- 
ally transverse  to  the  axis  of  the  glacier,  or  approxi- 
mately so.  In  length  it  may  vary  from  twenty  feet  to  a 
mile.  Its  downward  direction  is  originally  vertical;  but 
as  the  surface  of  the  glacier  moves  more  rapidly  than 


MONT   BLANC    AND  THE   MER   DE   GLACE.  43 

the  lower  portions,  it  assumes,  after  awhile,  an  inclina- 
tion which  gives  it  a  dip  up  the  valley.  Its  depth  may 
be  ten  or  a  hundred  feet,  and  its  width,  which  is  a  few 
inches  at  first,  may  grow  to  fathoms.*  The  two  walls 
generally  approach  each  other  downward,  and  we  may 
sometimes  safely  descend  to  the  bottom.  The  wall-ice  is 
absolutely  immaculate,  with  a  greenish-blue  transpar- 
ency. Down  in  the  crevasse  we  hear  the  rills  coursing 
through  the  substance  of  the  glacier,  and  sometimes  the 
central  torrent  rumbling  along  the  bottom.  The  sur- 
face of  the  glacier  is  white  and  granular  from  the  action 
of  the  sun.  Pools  of  water  rest  here  and  there, —  pure, 
cold  and  refreshing, —  and  numerous  rills  flow  over  the 
surface,  discharging  themselves  through  perforations  in 
the  ice-mass,  into  some  subglacial  stream. 

All  goes  well.  Now  we  reach  the  median  moraine, 
which,  from  Montanvert,  we  had  mistaken  for  the  oppo- 
site side.  This  is  a  longitudinal  ridge  of  icy  fragments 
and  commingled  boulders  and  sand.  The  remaining  half 
of  the  glacier  is  strewed  with  rocks  and  glacial  debris. 
Now  the  real  difficulties  begin.  The  crevasses  grow  into 
immense  yawning  chasms,  and  the  ice-masses  between 
them  rise  up  like  mere  knife-edges,  on  which  one  must 
balance  himself  in  the  transit.  The  mutual  intersections 
of  these  crevasses  continually  interrupt  the  pathway, 
and  we  are  compelled  sometimes  to  descend  by  a  series 
of  ten  or  twenty  steps  cut  in  the  ice  by  the  guides,  and 
then  to  ascend  by  as  many  more.  We  cannot  disguise 
the  fact  that  the  element  of  danger  enters  into  the  pas- 

*In  1824,  Forbes  measured  a  crevasse  at  the  base  of  the  Glacier  du  Ge'ant 
-which  had  a  breadth  of  not  less  than  1214  feet  (370  metres).  Payot,  Guide 
Jtinerah-f,  p.  146,  note. 


44 


SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGISTS    HAMMER. 


sasfe  of  the  Mer  de  Glace;  but  with  it  comes  the  exhila- 
ration and  the  determination  to  accomplish  the  transit 
without  a  guide.  If  worst  comes,  there  is  a  man  hang- 
ing upon  our  heels,  expecting  that  the  next  moment  will 
find  us  suing  for  his  assistance.  The  peril  arises  from 
the  absence  of  any  discernible  path,  and  our  ignorance 
of  the  route  indicated  as  easiest  by  the  continued  ex- 
perience of  the  guides. 


DIFFICULT    PASSAGE    ON    THE    MER     DE    GLACE.       FROM    A    PHOTO- 
GRAPH BY  J.  LEVY     ET     CIE.,   PARIS. 

The  farther  border  is  reached  in  safety, —  if  there  be 
any  border-line  between  the  ice  and  the  earth  into 
which  it  graduates  by  insensible  degrees.  Another  con- 
test with  huge  boulders  of  protogine,  and  we  strike  a 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE   HER    DE    GLACE.  45 

path  which  leads  us  steeply  through  a  rnire  of  sand  and 
dust  to  the  crest  of  the  great  lateral  moraine,  from 
which  we  look  down  a  hundred  feet  upon  the  billow- 
ing glacier  with  a  feeling  of  exultation  not  unmingled 
with  gratitude.  The  Mer  de  Glace  is,  after  all,  a  mile 
and  a  quarter  in  width  at  this  place;  and  we  feel  di- 
vested of  some  portion  of  the  contempt  with  which  we 
greeted  its  first  appearance  from  the  inn  at  Montanvert. 
Instead  of  recrossing  the  glacier,  we  descend  along 
the  moraine.  Soon  the  sound  of  water  reaches  us.  Sud- 
denly we  stand  in  the  presence  of  a  most  magnificent 
cascade.  The  Nant-Blanc,  a  mountain  torrent  from  a 
glacier  of  the  same  name  (lying  between  Aiguille  Verte. 
and  Aiguille  Bochard),  comes  literally  bounding,  skip- 
ping, leaping,  summersaulting  down  the  steep  ravine  a 
mile  in  length,  and  at  last  jumps  madly  off  the  preci- 
pice at  our  right,  and,  striking  on  the  chaos  of  rocks, 
breaks  itself  into  millions  of  pieces.  I  have  seen  no- 
where a  more  satisfactory  performance  of  aquatic  gym- 
nastics. Irresistibly  one  recalls  Southey's  description 
of  "  The  way  the  water  comes  down  at  Lodore." 

"  Recoiling,  turmoiling  and  toiling  and  boiling 
And  thumping  and  flumping  and  bumping  and  jumping 
And  dashing  and  flashing  and  splashing  and  clashing, 
And  so  never  ending,  but  always  descending, 
Sounds  and  motions  forever  and  ever  are  blending. 
All  at  once  and  all  o'er,  with  a  mighty  uproar, — 
And  this  way  the  water  conies  down  at  Lodore." 

We  had  seen  this  torrent  of  foam  from  the  opposite 
•side,  lying  upon  the  steep  slope  of  the  mountain  like  a 
white  line.  It  is  said  that  sometimes  boulders  disengaged 
by  the  melting  ice  of  the  glacier,  which  feeds  the  torrent, 


46  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ricochet  along  in  company  with  it,  and  leaping  from  the 
precipice,  endanger  the  safety  of  the  rapt  spectator  of  the 
scene. 

A  short  distance  below  we  encounter  another  "  nant " 
dancing  down  in  a  gentler  mood. 

The  moraine  on  which  we  travel  is  an  immense  ridge 
of  boulders  and  pulverized  rocks.  On  our  right  it  de- 
scends from  thirty  to  fifty  feet,  forming  a  little  valley 
between  us  and  the  contiguous  mountain.  On  our  left 
the  descent  is  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  feet  to  the  sur- 
face of  the  glacier.  On  this  side  the  elements  are  caus- 
ing the  moraine  to  crumble  away,  and  many  a  land-slide 
has  made  it  necessary  to  change  the  location  of  the  tour- 
ist's path.  The  material  is  deposited  upon  the  glacier, 
and  enters  into  the  formation  of  a  new  and  smaller  mo- 
raine, corresponding  to  the  present  stage  and  condition 
of  the  glacier.  It  is  evident  that  this  great  moraine  is 
gradually  disappearing.  It  is  equally  evident  that  when 
it  was  formed  the  glacier  filled  the  valley  a  hundred  feet 
higher  than  at  present.  And  the  polished  rocks  of  the 
mountain  wall  further  evince  that  at  some  period  ante- 
cedent to  the  creation  of  this  great  moraine  the  ice 
rubbed  the  sides  of  the  mountain  at  altitudes  a  hundred 
and  fifty  or  two  hundred  feet  above  the  existing  ice-level. 

Our  moraine,  as  we  advance,  grows  thinner,  and  now 
it  fades  out  against  a  steep  sloping  wall  of  (schistose) 
rock,  along  which  we  pass,  rapidly  descending,  by  means 
of  steps  cut  by  the  guides.  To  add  to  the  voyager's  se- 
curity, an  iron  rod,  bolted  at  intervals  to  the  cliff,  ex- 
tends from  end  to  end  of  this  descent.  This  is  the  Mau- 
vais  Pas.  Midway  of  the  passage,  a  flock  of  goats  skips 
past  us  as  if  wholly  unconscious  of  any  difficulty  in  the 


MONT   BLANC    AND   THE   HER   DE   GLACE. 


47 


path,  and  after  them  skips  the  shepherd-boy,  with  a  similar 
unconsciousness. 

Before  reaching  the  Mauvais  Pas,  the  Mer  de  Glace 
changes  its  name  to  Glacier  des  Bois.  The  slope  of  its 
bed  becomes  more  rapid,  and  the  crevasses  yawn  more 
deeply,  more  numerously,  and  more  ^rregularly.  The 


ICE  NEEDLES  OF  GLACIER  DES  BOIS,  THE  LOWER  PART  OF  THE 
MER  DE  GLACE.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  J.  LEVY  ET  CIE., 
PARIS. 

huge  crests  of  ice,  cut  across  by  other  crevasses,  become 
converted  into  immense  pyramids  and  needles  of  ice, 
which  bristle  like  porcupine  quills  over  the  greater  part 
of  the  sui-face.  Those  which  assume  a  more  columnar 
form  are  locally  known  as  seracs.  Looking  down  upon 


48  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

the  Glacier  des  Bois  from  the  Chapeau,  the  whole  aspect 
of  its  surface  is  wild  and  chaotic  beyond  expression.  Im- 
mense boulders  lie  scattered  up  and  down,  and  the  whole 
surface  is  gray  with  gravel  and  sediment.  Here  and 
there  large  pools  of  water  have  accumulated  in  the  de- 
pressions of  the  ice,  and  numerous  streams  descend  into 
the  depths  of  the  crevasses, —  gurgling,  rumbling  and 
rushing  on  to  join  the  great  trunk  drain  of  the  valley. 
We  stand  and  gaze  with  admiring  amazement  at  the  tre- 
mendous features  of  this  icy  me!6e.  We  ask  the  glacier's 
pardon  again  for  our  depreciatory  greeting. 

The  Chapeau  is  found  hanging  on  the  cliffs  at  the  foot 
of  the  Mauvais  Pas.  It  is  a  mere  cave-like  recess  under 
an  overhanging  rock.  Here  is  a  beautiful  spring,  which 
is  utilized  by  the  occupants  of  a  miserable  cabin, —  a  cabin 
not  too  miserable  to  extend  its  offer  of  rafraichissements 
to  the  passing  tourist. 

At  the  Chapeau  we  strike  a  path  practicable  for  mules. 
After  traversing  a  forest  of  firs  (Bois  du  Bouchet),  we 
burst  upon  an  outlook  as  charming  as  it  is  unexpected. 
Mont  Blanc  and  his  companions  stand  out  in  sunset  illu- 
mination, presenting  a  spectacle  different  from  any  yet 
witnessed.  We  are  still  several  hundred  feet  elevated  above 
the  vale  of  Chamonix.  On  the  side  opposite  us  rise  the- 
Flegere  and  the  Brevent,  and  back  of  these  the  Aiguilles 
Rouges.  The  shadow  of  these  mountains  has  spread  its 
gray  mantle  over  the  valley,  but  the  silver  forms  of  the 
monarch  domes  on  the  side  facing  the  declining  sun 
are  dazzling  in  a  radiance  which  is  brilliant  but  majestic- 
ally serene.  Glancing  up  the  valley  of  the  glacier,  the 
white  pinnacles  of  ice  first  arrest  the  eye,  and  then  it 
rises  to  the  illumined  spires  of  Aiguilles  du  Dru,  de 


MONT  BLANC  AND  THE  MEK  DE  GLACE. 


49 


Charmoz  and  de  Greppon,  and  to  the  right  of  these 
loom  up  the  bright  summits  of  the  Blatiere,  the  Midi, 
the  Mont  Maudit,  which  from  this  point  masks  the  crest 
of  Mont  Blanc,  and  the  Dome  and  Aiguille  du  Gouter, 
lifting  themselves  upon  the  shoulders  of  Mont  Blanc. 

We  pause  here  to  enjoy  the  changing  aspects  of  this 
magnificent  scene.     The  Mont  Blanc  mass  rises  before  us 


CHAMONIX  AND  MONT  BLANC  FROM  NEAR  THE  FOOT  OF  THF 
GLACIER  DES  BOIS.  THE  ARVE  AND  THE  VILLAGE  OF  CHA- 
MONIX, WITH  BASE  OF  THE  MONTANVERT  ON  THE  LEFT.  BE- 
YOND IS  THE  GLACIER  DES  BOSSONS  DESCENDING  FROM  THE 
SUMMIT  OF  MONT  BLANC  (NOT  SHOWN).  TO  THE  RIGHT  OF 
MONT  BLANC  IS  THE  DOME  DU  GOUTER,  AND  NEXT  THE 
AIGUILLE  DU  GOUTER.  IN  THE  VALLEYS  BEYOND  THE  GLACIER 
DES  BOSSONS  ARE  THE  GLACIER  DE  TACONNAY  AND  THE  GLACIER 
DE  LA  GRIA.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  J.  LEVY  ET  CIE.,  PARIS. 
4 


50  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

majestic,  lofty,  silent  and  serene.  Its  ponderous  form 
reaches  downward  into  the  evening  obscurity  of  the  val- 
ley. The  boundary  line  between  the  light  and  shade  is 
concealed  by  a  belt  of  carmine-tinted  clouds,  sleeping 
lazily  on  the  bosom  of  the  mountain.  The  effect  is  to 
isolate  the  glorious  heights  from  the  dusky  terrene  land- 
scapes lying  below.  The  mountain  rests  in  its  frame  of 
clouds,  as  beautiful  as  Clytie  in  her  sunflower.  Its  snowy 
surface  gleams  with  a  luster  of  brilliant  silveiy  white- 
ness. But  while  we  gaze  we  discern  a  change.  It  is  like 
the  changes  which  pass  over  the  aspects  of  the  heavenly 
bodies.  The  sable  brush  of  night  has  dulled  the  roseate 
tinge  of  the  wreath  of  clouds.  A  golden  yellow  film  has 
been  drawn  over  the  silvery  whiteness  of  the  mountains. 
Now  a  rosy  flush  displaces  the  tint  of  gold, —  as  if  some 
evening  camp-fire  had  been  lighted  to  replace  the  warmth 
of  the  retiring  sun.  Sooner  than  our  thought,  a  cerulean 
tint  steals  over  the  scene,  which,  dissolving  with  the  red, 
throws  over  the  gigantic  form  of  the  mountain  a  robe  of 
imperial  purple.  But  immediately  the  luster  of  the  purple 
mantle  fades  into  a  dusky,  silver-gray;  then  an  ashy  pale- 
ness flits  for  an  instant  over  the  scene,  and  the  light  of 
day  has  left  Mont  Blanc  to  his  proper  complexion, —  a 
pure  snow-whiteness  veiled  in  evening  shadow,  and  rest- 
ing against  the  deep  cerulean  beyond. 

The  glacier  which  we  have  visited  presents  still  one 
scene  of  impressive  and  suggestive  grandeur.  We  must 
visit  the  glacier  at  its  termination.  Devoting  an  after- 
noon to  the  trip,  we  find  the  little  hamlet  des  Bois  situ- 
ated at  the  foot  of  the  stupendous  terminal  moraine,  the 
outer  slope  of  which  is  occupied  by  scattered  firs.  Pass- 
ing through  an  opening  excavated  by  the  Arveiron.  which 


MONT    BLANC    AND   THE    MEB   DE   GLACE.  51 

takes  its  rise  from  the  glacier,  \ve  are  ushered  into  an 
amphitheater,  the  vastness  of  whose  proportions  and  the 
utter  chaos  of  whose  aspect  create  a  feeling  of  oppression 
in  the  mind.  The  moraine  is  at  least  eighty  feet  high, 
and  sweeps  around  in  front  of  us  to  join  the  lateral  mo- 
raine. It  is  a  desolate  pile  of  clay  and  sand  and  rounded 
boulders.  Its  inner  slope  is  interrupted  by  another  mo- 
raine thirty  feet  high,  which,  like  a  bench,  extends  from 
end  to  end  of  the  circuit.  This  immense  terraced  wall 
incloses  an  area  nearly  half  a  mile  in  each  diameter,  and 
strewed  with  a  wilderness  of  granitic  blocks,  among  which 
we  pick  our  way.  The  white  water  of  the  rushing  stream, 
which  deafens  us  with  its  din,  pours  out  from  beneath  a 
dark  majestic  vault  of  ice  in  the  lofty  terminal  wall  of 
the  glacier.  This  is  the  source  of  the  Arveiron, —  an  in- 
significant though  noisy  river,  blending,  in  the  course  of 
a  mile,  with  the  equally  turbulent  Arve.  But  how  mag- 
nificent is  its  cradle!  With  difficulty,  and  not  without 
danger,  we  climb  over  the  debris  to  the  very  foot  of  the 
glacier  and  lay  our  hand  upon  the  cold  ice.  Beyond  and 
above  us  stretches  the  icy  river,  with  its  bristling  pyra- 
mids and  needles  projected  against  the  sky.  A  chilling 
current  of  air  from  the  surface  of  the  glacier  settles 
down  upon  us.  Rocks  of  granite  and  rocks  of  ice  are 
mingled  in  indifferent  confusion  beneath  our  feet,  upon 
our  right  and  upon  our  left,  while,  from  moment  to 
moment,  the  blocks  which  have  completed  their  long  jour- 
ney upon  the  back  of  the  glacier,  dismount  with  a  plunge 
which  startles  the  visitor  and  prompts  him  to  reflect 
upon  his  danger.  A  few  years  ago  one  of  these  missiles 
crushed  the  cranium  of  a  young  English  lady  and  threw 
her  into  the  torrent.  Two  other  fatal  accidents  of  this 


52  SPARKS   i'HOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

kind  have  occurred,  besides  several  severe  contusions. 
Some  years  ago  three  tourists  tried  the  experiment  of 
exploding  a  bomb  beneath  the  vault  of  ice.  The  arch 
came  tumbling  about  their  heads ;  one  was  crushed  to 
death,  and  the  two  others  were  very  severely  wounded. 

The  movements  of  the  glacier  are  among  its  greatest 
marvels.  It  marches  and  it  retreats.  The  Lower  Glacier 
of  the  Aar,  which  was  the  scene  of  Agassiz'  observations, 
moves  downward  at  an  average  rate  of  250  feet  per 
annum  (Dolfuss-Ausset).  HugiYhut,  according  to  Agassiz, 
had  been  carried  5,900  feet  in  13  years.  A  record  bot- 
tled up  by  Hugi,  stated  that  it  had  traveled  197  feet  in 
three  years  and  2,345  feet  in  9  years.  The  Mer  de  Glace 
travels  better.  Forbes  demonstrated  by  observations  that 
at  Montanvert  it  moves  822  feet  per  annum,  and  at  the 
source  of  the  Arveiron  209  feet  per  annum.  The  stream 
of  ice,  pressed  into  a  narrower  channel,  moves  with  in- 
creased velocity. 

This  march  of  the  glacier,  unless  counteracted,  would 
result  in  a  rapid  encroachment  upon  the  cultivated  lands 
of  the  valley.  The  compensation  is  found  in  the  sum- 
mer's warmth.  The  ice  undergoes  a  rapid  dissolution, — 
as  the  river  testifies  which  issues  from  its  base.  This 
causes  a  diminution  of  the  glacier  in  a  longitudinal  as 
well  as  a  vertical  sense.  The  advance  of  the  lower  ex- 
tremity is  melted  off  during  the  summer.  If  the  season 
prove  unusually  warm,  the  dissolution  exceeds  the  ad- 
vance, and  a  retreat  is  the  net  result.  If  the  season 
prove  cooler  than  usual,  the  advance  exceeds  the  amount 
of  dissolution,  and  the  resultant  is  a  net  advance. 

Now,  it  is  apparent  that  this  glacier  before  which  we 
stand,  has  formerly  occupied  a  more  advanced  position. 


MONT   BLANC    AND   THE   MER   DE   GLACE.  53 

A  record  on  a  stone  at  the  outer  moraine  informs  us  that 
this  epoch  was  1826.  At  that  time,  says  Payot,*  the  ter- 
minal moraine  had  been  crowded  close  to  the  little  ham- 
let des  Bois,  to  the  great  consternation  of  its  inhabitants, 
and  some  huge  blocks,  still  to  be  seen,  were  hurled  down 
among  the  houses.  From  that  date  to  1869  the  retreat 
had  amounted  to  1,640  feet.  In  the  same  time,  the  ver- 
tical thickness  of  the  glacier  has  diminished  984  feet. 
There  rises  before  us  an  immense  pi-otrusion  of  rock, 
standing  exactly  in  the  natural  course  of  the  glacier. 
Its  surface  is  planed  completely  smooth,  and  the  guides 
tell  us  that  within  their  memory  the  river  of  ice  flowed 
triumphantly  over  it.  Now  it  turns  to  the  right,  and  de- 
scribes a  semi-circle  to  avoid  the  obstacle. 

Let  us  now  view  these  objects  from  the  opposite  side 
of  the  valley  of  Chamonix.  The  ascent  of  the  Flegere  is 
one  of  the  favorite  excursions.  It  is  only  six  thousand 
feet  high,  being  a  little  less  elevated  than  Montanvert. 
The  path  is  similar,  and  the  scenes  are  similar.  From 
the  inn  on  the  summit  we  obtain  magnificent  views  of 
the  whole  chain  of  Mont  Blanc.  The  Mer  de  Glace  winds 
snake-like  down  its  valley,  and  the  needled  pinnacles  sur- 
rounding its  upper  course  stand  forth  in  characteristic 
boldness.  We  have  more  than  once  remarked  the  con- 
trast in  form  between  the  aiguillated  summits  and  the 
rounded  dome  of  Mont  Blanc.  A  difference  in  geological 
structure  is,  of  course,  the  cause  of  this.  A  geological 
section,  across  any  part  of  the  Alpine  chain,  shows  it  to 
be  constituted  of  three  portions, —  a  Middle  Zone,  a  North 
Lateral  Zone,  and  a  South  Lateral  Zone.  The  rocks  of 
the  Middle  Zone  stand  almost  vertical,  while  those  of  the 

*  Payot,  Guide  Itineraire  au  Mont  Blanc,  p.  153. 


54 


SPAEKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGISTS    HAMMER. 


Lateral  Zones  are  much  less  tilted,  and  seem  to  have  been 
displaced  by  the  up-thrust  of  the  Middle  Zone.  All  the 
rocks  which  we  have  observed  belong  to  the  Middle  Zone; 
but  in  this  zone  is  a  huge  central  mass  of  unstratified  Al- 
pine granite,  or  protogine,  constituting  the  loftiest  summits 
of  the  chain, — Mont  Blanc,  Monte  Rosa,  Bernina,  Jung- 
frau,  Finsteraarhorn,  and  others, —  while  the  contiguous 
portions,  on  either  hand,  consist  of  masses  of  vertically 
stratified  schists, —  as  we  have  seen  in  Aiguille  de  Char- 


G E N E g AjL  S T; £U C TJJRE^O F  T H  E  AL P S 


MONT    BLANC 


c;  Feldspatklc  Sehisu 
d.Dolomitie  Limestone 
e.  Black  Limestone  and 


u',  c"st°?l'inl     Schists 

I,  \nthracilic  Schists  

e.  Vcrruc.no  r  .  Gypsu 

StuoUr:  Gcoloyie  den  & 

STRUCTURE   OF    THE   ALPS   OF   CENTRAL   EUROPE. 

moz,  Aiguille  du  Dru  and  other  pinnacles.*  By  weath- 
ering, these  projecting  strata  assume  the  castellated  forms 
so  magnificently  displayed  from  the  Flegere.  The  un- 
stratified  protogine,  on  the  contrary,  weathers  into  the 
class  of  rounded  forms  of  which  Mont  Blanc  is  the  type. 
It  is  from  the  loftier  "  central  mass "  that  the  boulders 
of  protogine  so  a,bundant  along  the  paths  of  the  glaciers 
have  been  transported. 

*  Studcr,  Geo'ogie  der  flcfut'fiz. 


MONT   BLANC   AND  THE   MER   DE   GLACE.  55 

From  the  Flegere  there  is  a  path  to  the  BreVent,  with- 
out descending  to  the  valley  of  Chamonix.  We  must  visit 
the  BreVent,  because  from  that  position  we  obtain  the 
most  intelligible  view  of  Mont  Blanc  and  its  surround- 
ings, and  look  down  upon  the  Glacier  des  Bossons,  as,  from 
the  Flegere,  we  look  down  upon  the  Mer  de  Glace.  Here, 
from  the  summit  of  the  Brevent,  how  magnificent  a  pano- 
rama is  spread  before  us!f  Directly  in  front  is  Mont 
Blanc;  on  the  right  is  the  Dome  du  Gouter  with  the 
little  protuberance  called  the  Dromedary  intervening. 
Further  to  the  right  is  Aiguille  dn  Gouter.  To  the  left 
of  Mont  Blanc  is  Mont  Maudit,  separated  by  a  depres- 
sion called  the  Corridor.  The  angular  summit  to  the 
left  of  this  is  Mont  Blanc  du  Tacul.  This  wide  expanse 
of  mountain  summit  is  deeply  covered  with  ancient  snows 
in  the  granular  condition  called  neve  by  the  French  and 
Fim  by  the  Germans.  This  exists  everywhere  at  eleva- 
tions above  10,000  feet.  The  firn-fields  are  the  aliment 
of  the  glaciers.  When  they  descend  below  the  altitude 
of  10,000  feet  the  softening  influence  of  the  sun  causes 
the  firn  to  be  converted  into  ice.  Above  the  firn-fields 
rise  dark  masses  of  rock  whose  slopes  are  too  steep  to 
retain  the  snows.  We  note  in  particular  the  Grands 
Mulcts,  two  rocky  pyramids,  on  one  of  which  the  guides 
have  erected  an  inn  for  the  accommodation  of  voyagers 
in  the  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc. 

From  this  enormous  firn-field  two  great  glaciers  are 
seen  to  descend,  separated  by  the  "  comb "  of  the  moun- 
tain. We  have  seen  both  of  these  when  first  entering 
the  valley  of  Chamonix.  The  larger  one  on  the  left  is 
the  great  Glacier  des  Bossons,  and  the  other  is  the  Glacier 

t  See  the  view,  p.  65. 


56  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

de  Taconnay.  Note,  from  this  point,  the  terminal  mo- 
raines which  have  accumulated  about  their  lower  extremi- 
ties. No  argument  is  needed  to  convince  us  that  this 
work  was  accomplished  by  a  more  developed  condition  of 
the  glaciers  than  we  witness  to-day.  Payot*  tells  us  that 
the  maximum  advance  of  the  Glacier  des  Bossons,  in 
modern  times,  was  in  1817.  From  that  date  to  1869  it 
had  retreated  1,800  feet,  and  had  suffered  a  lowering  of 
at  least  300  feet.  In  1817  the  terrified  inhabitants  of 
the  little  village  at  its  foot  held  devotional  processions, 
and  planted  a  cross  in  the  path  of  the  glacier  to  impede 
its  march.  Happily  the  advance  was  checked,  and  the 
devout  bourgeoisie  have  room  for  the  belief  that  proces- 
sions and  crosses  have  turned  the  course  of  Nature. 

As  we  stand  contemplating  the  grandiose  features  of 
the  scene  before  us.  we  feel  arising  a  strong  ambition  to 
be  among  the  number  of  those  whose  feet  have  rested 
upon  that  white  mountain  dome.  We  must  undertake 
this  thrilling  experience  on  some  other  occasion:  but,  lest 
we  be  wholly  defrauded  of  this  pleasure,  we  will  make  a 
preliminary  ascent  over  the  first  section  of  the  route. 
This  will  take  us  to  the  upper  reaches  of  the  Glacier  des 
Bossons. 

Ascending  from  Chamonix,  our  first  halt  is  at  the  Cas- 
cade du  Dard.  A  small  stream  of  ice-cold  water  breaks 
itself  in  pieces  in  coming  down  a  cliff  some  60  feet  in 
height.  The  path  leads  past  another  fine  cascade  (des 
Pelerins)  and  along  the  brink  of  a  precipice  overhanging 
the  valley  of  the  glacier,  from  which,  five  hundred  feet 
below  us,  we  look  down  on  the  stream  of  ice.  Passing 
the  upper  limit  of  trees,  we  pursue  our  zigzag  path  to 

*  Payot,  Guide,*?.  149. 


MONT   BLANC    AND   THE   HER   DE   GLACE.  57 

Pierre  Pointue,  6,722  feet  above  the  sea.  Here  is  a  com- 
fortable little  inn,  whose  keeper,  Sylvain  Couttet,  has  be- 
come well  known  to  ascensionists. 

After  rest  and  refreshment,  we  press  on  toward  the 
border  of  the  upper  Glacier  des  Bossons.  Overcoming 
the  difficulties  which  everywhere  beset  the  entrance  upon 
a  glacier,  we  traverse  the  plateau  of  the  glacier,  and  pro- 
ceed as  far  as  its  junction  with  Glacier  de  Taconnay.  The 
expanse  of  ice  and  snow  is  wild  and  chaotic  beyond  de- 
scription. Enormous  crevasses,  precipices  to  be  scaled  by 
means  of  ladders,  towering  pyramids,  beetling  s6racs  and 
bristling  needles  of  ice,  succeeding  each  other  mile  after 
mile, —  these  must  be  seen  to  be  appreciated  or  under- 
stood. 

But  here,  for  the  present,  we  check  our  roaming,  and 
take  leave  of  the  majestic  forms  and  sublime  silences  of 
these  awful  Alps.  There  is  much  more  here  than  the 
material  lineaments  which  address  themselves  to  the  lit- 
eral eye.  To  him  who  has  cherished  and  cultured  the 
divine  gift  of  penetrating  beyond  the  visible  forms  of 
Nature,  there  is  a  realm  of  meaning  revealed  by  these 
stupendous  features  which,  to  grosser  eyes,  they  completely 
obscure.  It  was  in  this  vale  of  Chamonix  that  Coleridge 
penned  his  "  Hymn  before  Sunrise,"  so  full  of  the  spirit 
which  transfuses  Nature.  To  the  poet,  realities  unseen 
and  truths  unutterable  are  proclaimed  by  "  those  five  wild 
torrents  fiercely  glad,"  called  forth  from  the  "  icy  caverns 
of  night  and  utter  death";  by  their  "unceasing  thunder 
and  eternal  foam";  by  the  "living  flowers  that  skirt  the 
eternal  frost " ;  the  "  wild  goats  sporting  round  the  eagle's 
nest";  the  "lightnings,  the  dread  arrows  of  the  clouds," 
and  first  and  chief,  the  snow-clad  "  sovran  of  the  vale," 


58  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

with  sunless    pillars   sunken   deep   in  earth,   and   counte- 
nance filled  with  morning's  rosy  light. 

"Thou  too,  hoar  Mount!  with  thy  sky -pointing  peaks, 
Oft  from  whose  feet,  the  avalanche,  unheard, 
Shoots  downward,  glittering  through  the  pure  serene 
Into  the  depths  of  clouds  that  veil  thy  breast,— 
Thou  too,  again,  stupendous  mountain!  thou 
That  as  I  raise  my  head,  awhile  bowed  low 
In  adoration,  upward  from  thy  base 
Slow  traveling  with  dim  eyes  suffused  with  tears 
Solemnly  seemest,  like  a  vaporing  cloud, 
To  rise  before  me,— Rise,  oh,  ever  rise, 
Rise  like  a  cloud  of  incense,  from  the  Earth ! 
Thou  kingly  spirit  throned  among  the  hills, 
Thou  dread  ambassador  from  Earth  to  Heaven, 
Great  hierarch !  tell  thou  the  silent  sky, 
And  tell  the  stars,  and  tell  yon  rising  sun, 
Earth  with  her  thousand  voices,  praises  God." 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC. 


rr^HE  ascent  of  Mont  Blanc  is  an  achievement  which 
-*-  constitutes  an  epoch  in  a  human  life.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  glorious  and  memorable  experiences  which  it 
is  possible  to  gain.  The  conditions  of  this  consummation 
are  fatigue  and  danger;  but  these  are  also  the  condi- 
tions of  that  inspiration  which  scorns  obstacles  and  is 
blind  to  everything  but  its  object. 

I  cannot  assert  that,  to  all  who  make  the  ascent,  a 
love  of  nature's  sublimities  is  the  source  of  this  inspi- 
ration. Some  scale  the  glaciers  and  the  snows  of  the 
mountain  because  it  has  become  somewhat  of  a  fashion; 
and  to  follow  the  fashion  there  is  no  extreme  of  discom- 
fort or  fatigue  they  will  not  endure.  Some  make  the 
journey  because,  wearied  with  the  common-places  of 
travel,  there  is  no  other  place  to  go, —  Mont  Blanc  is 
their  refuge  from  ennui.  Such  persons  climb  over  eter- 
nal snows,  to  the  voiceless  solitudes  of  mountain  sum- 
mits, in  the  spirit  of  the  teamster,  who  undertakes  to 
haul  you  a  hundred  perch  of  quarry-stone.  It  is  a  job 
which  must  be  accomplished, —  that  is  all. 

For  us,  the  inspiration  which  we  feel  proceeds  from 
a  kindled  imagination,  inflamed  by  the  pleasing  but  ter- 
rible majesty  of  the  forms  of  Nature  which  surround 
us,  and  which  seem  scarcely  to  veil  the  personal  maj- 
esty of  the  Supreme  Creator  himself.  It  is  not  so  much 
in  the  view  from  the  summit  of  the  mountain;  for  this 

59 


60  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

is  disappointing.  The  entire  landscape  has  been  spread 
before  us  for  hours  before  attaining  the  highest  dome. 
There  is  something  in  standing  where  so  few  feet  have 
stood  before;  and  one  can  enter  fully  into  the  ambi- 
tion of  the  Englishwoman  who  compelled  her  guides  to 
hoist  her  on  their  shoulders,  that  her  head  might  be 
higher  than  any  other  mortal's  who  ever  stood  on  the 
summit.  There  is  a  fullness  and  completion  in  the  sat- 
isfaction felt  by  one  who  has  reached  the  very  dome; 
but  all  which  thrills,  all  which  swells,  all  which  enno- 
bles the  soul,  is  met  and  felt  long  before  the  final  con- 
summation of  the  ascent.  The  summit,  therefore,  brings 
a  flush  of  disappointment.  The  landscapes  beneath  are 
distant,  and  flat,  and  dim.  The  object  which  inspired 
your  veneration  and  fixed  your  ambition  no  longer 
rises  before  you;  it  has  ceased  to  exist;  your  ardor  sub- 
sides, and  you  feel  almost  impatient  to  descend.  De 
Saussure  relates  that  such  was  his  own  chagrin,  on 
reaching  the  summit  after  years  of  effort,  that  he 
stamped  his  foot  in  a  sort  of  anger.  Forewarned,  we 
shall  not  be  disappointed. 

Mont  Blanc,  I  have  said,  is  a  sort  of  fashion;  but, 
to  say  it  is  the  fashion,  is  to  say  it  has  not  been  long 
in  vogue.  As  a  fashion,  it  may  be  said  to  have  taken 
its  rise  in  1861;  though  the  first  ascent  was  three-fourths 
of  a  century  earlier;  and  the  first  tour  of  the  Alps  for 
the  observation  of  Nature  was  in  1741.  The  Alps, 
indeed,  have  been  imperfectly  known  since  the  time  of 
the  Romans,  who  have  left  many  traces  of  their  occu- 
pancy in  the  form  of  tunnels,  and  excavations  for  high- 
ways, and  half  obliterated  exploitations  for  the  useful 
metals,  and  even  a  single  inscription  found  in  the  de- 


ASCENT   OF    MONT    BLANC.  61 

scent  from  the  Col  de  Forclaz  to  Saint  Gervais.  In 
1090  a  priory  or  convent  of  Benedictines  was  founded 
in  the  valley  of  Chamonix,  which,  in  1330,  made  laws 
against  foreigners,  and  which,  after  1443,  received  fre- 
quent visitations  from  the  bishops  of  Geneva.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  it  seems  that  the  glaciers  were  in 
process  of  advancement;  and  the  simple  and  pious  peo- 
ple of  the  valley  —  then,  and  a  century  afterward  re- 
puted a  set  of  brigands  —  felt  a  strong  anxiety  that 
their  aged  bishop  should  exorcise  them.  As  the  Bishop, 
Jean  d'Arenton,  was  very  aged,  and  lived  at  Annecy, 
forty  miles  distant,  they  grew  apprehensive  that  death 
might  deprive  them  of  his  services.  They  therefore  sent 
a  deputation  and  implored  him,  in  all  sincerity,  to  come 
and  intervene  in  their  behalf.  Touched  by  their  simple 
faith,  the  aged  bishop  went  and  "  exorcised  and  blessed 
those  mountains  of  ice."  The  historian  states  that  from 
that  time  the  glaciers  retreated;  and  a  hundred  years 
afterward  (1767)  had  left  an  interval  of  a  third  of  an 
English  mile  between  them  and  their  ancient  limits.* 

As  the  English  have  always  been  the  most  numer- 
ous frequenters  of  the  valley  of  Chamonix,  so  it  was  a 
company  of  Englishmen  who  first  visited  the  valley  in 
the  character  of  tourists.  In  1741,  two  Englishmen, 
Windham  and  Pocoke,  with  seven  compatriots  and  a 
large  number  of  servants,  set  out  from  Geneva,  "  armed 
to  the  teeth,"  and  supplied  with  tents  and  provisions 
for  a  long  and  hostile  campaign.  After  three  days  they 
entered  the  valley,  found  the  inhabitants  unexpectedly 
peaceful,  accepted  their  hospitalities  and  offers  of  aid, 
and  ascended  the  Montanvert  and  surveyed  the  great 

*  Vie  de  Jean  d'Arenton  d'Alex,  Lyons,  1767. 


62  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

glacier  which  flows  at  its  feet.  Windham,  in  a  subse- 
quent account,  compared  its  surface  to  that  of  an  ice- 
floe in  a  Greenland  sea;  and  from  that  time  it  has  been 
known  as  the  Mer  de  Glace.  This  company,  it  amazes  us 
to  learn,  now  felt  their  curiosity  gratified,  and  marched 
back  to  Geneva.  Another  expedition  was  made  the  follow- 
ing year,  by  Martel  of  Geneva,  who  effected  an  approxi- 
mate measurement  of  the  height  of  Mont  Blanc. 

The  apathy  of  some  souls  in  the  presence  of  Nature's 
sublimities  is  to  me  as  incomprehensible  as  the  darkest 
of  Nature's  mysteries.  Windham  had  discovered  a  new 
world, —  I  had  almost  said  he  might  have  become  the 
apostle  of  a  new  worship.  But  he  goes  home  from  the 
august  presence  of  Mont  Blanc  and  its  gigantic  glaciers 
and  writes:  "However  savage  these  regions  may  be,  one 
does  not  fail  to  find  here  at  times  some  very  beautiful 
landscapes."  I  quote  from  one  of  Durier's  lectures  on 
Mont  Blanc,  delivered  in  Paris,  the  comment  of  a  suscep- 
tible mind  on  such  a  degree  of  coldness.  "  Clearly,"  he 
says,  "  this  is  not  the  tone  which  the  subject  demands.  You 
feel  that,  at  this  distance.  There  exist  here  many  shabby 
glaciers,  of  villainous  aspect;  rocks  which  reveal  nothing 
of  value;  precipices  to  make  one  shudder;  torrents  on 
whose  borders  one  cannot  hear  himself  speak.  But,  God 
have  mercy!  you  find  here  and  there  some  villages  agreea- 
bly situated;  fine  meadows;  fields  well  cultivated,  and 
clusters  of  trees  producing  happy  effects.  Ah !  my  friends, 
I  have  waters,  and  meadows,  and  hamlets  and  woods  at 
my  very  door, —  why  go  so  far  to  seek  them  ?  " 

In  Horace  Benedict  de  Saussure  was  a  different  soul. 
Born  in  Geneva,  the  spirit  of  the  Mountains  seems  to 

*  Durier,  Hlstoire  du  Mont  Blanc,  p  3i. 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  63 

have  been  inherited  in  him.  From  gathering  wild  flowers 
to  soothe  the  weary  hours  of  a  sick  mother,  the  child  be- 
gan to  stroll  to  the  neighboring  mountains.  He  had 
looked  upon  them  with  an  inspiration,  a  longing,  a  wor- 
ship. While  yet  a  boy,  he  had  scaled  the  cliffs  of  the 
Great  and  Little  Saleve;  he  had  wandered  over  the  ranges 
of  the  Voirons;  at  nineteen,  he  spent  fifteen  days  among 
the  loftiest  summits  of  the  Jura,  and,  the  same  year,  as- 
cended the  Mole.  From  all  these  altitudes,  the  majestic, 
snow-covered  summits  of  the  Mont  Blanc  range  were  ever 
before  him,  and  he  burned  with  a  desire  to  scale  them. 
In  1760,  at  twenty  years  of  age,  he  proceeded  on  foot 
to  Chamonix.  Thereafter,  for  many  years,  he  performed 
an  annual  pilgrimage  to  the  Alps.  He  ascended  most  of 
their  lofty  summits,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Apennines, 
the  Jura,  the  Cevennes,  the  Cote  d'Or,  the  Vosges,  the 
mountains  of  Sicily,  the  Auvergne,  England  and  Germany. 
But  Mont  Blanc  impressed  him  more  profoundly  than 
all  these.  And  yet  its  dazzling  dome  had  repelled  all  at- 
tempts to  scale  it.  De  Saussure  was  a  scientist.  What 
aid  might  be  derived  from  its  summit  in  determining  the 
general  configuration  of  the  Alps!  What  interesting 
studies  of  the  world  of  glaciers! — of  the  temperature, 
and  the  effects  of  atmospheric  rarefaction  at  such  an  al- 
titude! De  Saussure  felt  that  he  must  reach  the  summit 
of  Mont  Blanc.  He  cherished  the  purpose  for  twenty- 
seven  years.  He  made  repeated  efforts  to  overcome  the 
obstacles  of  nature,  but  always  failed.  And  yet,  from 
every  hill- top  —  from  his  very  study  window  at  Geneva  — 
the  calm,  mild  visage  of  the  unsubdued  monarch  smiled 
triumphantly  upon  him.  He  nourished  his  defeated  am- 
bition till  he  gazed  upon  Mont  Blanc  with  a  sort  of 


64  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

frenzied,  painful  pang  of  disappointment.  But  this  was 
not  despair.  He  offered  rewards  to  the  peasants  of 
Chamonix  for  the  discovery  of  the  way  to  the  inaccessi- 
ble summit.  There  were  many  whom  the  hope  of  gain 
impelled  to  perilous  endeavors, —  one  whom  the  spirit  of 
de  Saussure  had  inspired  with  a  noble  and  strenuous  am- 
bition. The  force  of  soul  succeeded  where  cupidity  had 
failed.  Jacques  Balmat,  in  1786,  climbed  bravely  to  the 
summit,  and  stood  where  human  foot  had  never  been 
placed  before.  It  was  only  during  the  next  year,  how- 
ever, that  De  Saussure  himself  was  enabled  to  follow  Bal- 
mat to  the  summit  and  institute  the  long-sought  scien- 
tific observations.* 

I  shall  not  detain  the  reader  with  further  prelimina- 
ries. I  hope  his  appetite  is  keen  for  the  experiences  to 
which  I  invite  him.  Will  he  go  with  me  over  those 
frightful  fields  of  ice, —  those  yawning  gulfs, —  those  dizzy 
cliffs, —  those  glassy  slopes?  Will  he  venture  on  those 
broad  plateaux  of  eternal  neiye;  and,  braving  cold,  and 
clouds,  and  snows,  and  lack  of  breath,  aspire  to  place  his 
feet  where  Balmat  stood, —  before  the  eyes  of  four  na- 
tions—  France  and  Switzerland,  Germany  and  Italy? 

Let  us,  then,  seek  first  a  panoramic  view  of  the  region 
which  is  to  be  the  scene  of  our  labors.  A  hundred  sum- 
mits gaze  full  in  the  face  of  the  snowy  monarch  of  7noun- 
tains;  but  thei'e  is  none  which  faces  him  so  squarely  and 
so  boldly  as  the  Br^vent.  This  mountain  belongs  to  the 
range  of  the  Aiguilles  Vertes,  on  the  side  of  the  valley 
opposite  the  Mont  Blanc  group,  and  the  visit  to  it  is  one 
of  the  favorite  excursions  from  Chamonix.  If  a  view 
more  magnificent  or  awe-inspiring  exists  on  any  part  of 

*  De  Saussure,  Voyages  dans  les  Alps,  4  vols.,  4to, 


ASCENT   OF   MONT   BLANC. 


65 


this  planet,  I  have  no  idea  where  it  lies.  We  are  look- 
ing southeast.  Here,  in  the  center  of  the  field,  rises  the 
majestic  dome  of  Mont  Blanc.  Though  remoter  than  any 
of  its  neighbors,  it  overtops  them  all.  To  our  right  are 
two  principal  summits  swelling  from  the  mountain  mass. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  Dome  du  Gouter,  separated  from 


VIEW  OF  MONT  BLANC  FROM  THE  BREVENT.   FROM  A  PHOTO- 
GRAPH BY  J.  LEVY  ET  CIE.,  PARIS. 

Mont  Blanc  by  a  minor  swell  called  the  Hump  of  the 
Dromedary.  The  other  principal  summit  is  the  Aiguille 
de  Gouter,  with  a  sharp  crest  striking  obliquely  down 
the  mountain.  To  our  left  of  Mont  Blanc  are  two  prin- 
cipal summits.  The  first  of  these,  with  the  brown  ragged 
5 


66  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

front  turned  toward  Mont  Blanc,  is  the  Mont  Maudit  or 
Cursed  Mountain.  This  entire  range,  in  the  middle  ages, 
was  known  as  the  "  Montagnes  Maudites."  They  were 
cursed  with  eternal  snows  and  sterility  in  punishment  of 
the  sins  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  region.  So,  at  least, 
other  people  alleged.  Thus,  also,  in  the  Pyrenees,  the 
loftiest  summit  is  "  Maladetta." 

The  principal  summit  to  the  left  of  Mont  Maudit,  and 
apparently  separated  from  it  by  only  a  shallow  depression, 
is  the  Mont  Blanc  du  Tacul.  Close  observation  will  show, 
however,  that  the  mass  to  which  this  summit  appertains 
is  quite  separated  from  Mont  Maudit  by  a  col  or  de- 
pression, and  that  its  right-hand  termination,  instead  of 
being  Mont  Maudit,  is  an  obtuse  mountain  angle  between 
the  two.  This  is  Aiguille  de  Saussure.  Farther  to  the 
left,  and  more  in  the  foreground,  are  the  Aiguilles  du 
Midi.  On  the  northern  slope  of  Mont  Blanc  we  notice 
two  dark  ranges  of  rocky  cliffs.  These  are  the  Rochers 
Rouges  or  Red  Rocks. 

From  right  to  left  this  extensive  field  is  mantled  with 
ancient  snows,  which  have  mostly  assumed  the  granular 
condition  known  as  "  firn  "  or  "  nev6."  These  are  the  store- 
house of  glacier  material.  In  places  where  the  mountain 
surfaces  are  too  precipitous  the  bare  rocks  protrude.  The 
field  of  neve"  in  general  undulates  in  conformity  with 
the  configuration  of  the  mountain  face;  but  in  some 
places  we  trace  perpendicular  cliffs  of  snow,  one  or  two 
hundred  feet  in  height.  One  of  these,  starting  from  near 
the  crest  of  the  Aiguille  de  Gouter,  angles  like  the  bas- 
tions of  a  fortification  across  the  upper  limit  of  the  great 
Glacier  de  Taconnay.  Another  snow-wall  is  revealed, 
stretching  from  the  foot  of  Mont  Maudit,  and  still  others 


ASCENT   OF   MONT   BLANC.  67 

overhang  the  cliffs  of  the  Rochers  Rouges.  The  larger 
of  the  two  enormous  glaciers  which  constitute  the  out- 
lets of  this  vast  sea  of  neve  is  Glacier  des  Bossons,  which 
is  separated  from  the  other  by  a  wedge-shaped  crest  of 
rocks,  terminating  upward  in  the  spires  of  Aiguille  de 
la  Tour.  Rising  from  the  firn-field,  in  the  direction 
pointed  out  by  this  rocky  crest,  we  see  a  series  of  senti- 
nel-like pyramidal  rocks  standing  in  dreary  isolation. 
These  are  the  "  Grands  Mulcts "  or  Big  Mules.  On  the 
lower  one  the  guides  of  Chamonix  have  erected  a  couple 
of  cabins,  which  serve  as  inns, —  plain,  and  even  rude; 
but  never  was  inn  entered  with  fewer  questions  asked 
than  this,  after  a  desperate  scramble  of  six  hours'  dura- 
tion. 

In  gazing  upon  this  panorama  of  glaciers,  one  cannot 
fail  to  remark  the  immense  moraines  accumulated  about 
their  lower  reaches.  The  great  elevations  of  these  mo- 
raines are  due  to  the  agency  of  a  flood-time  in  the  glacier 
stream.  Sixty-four  years  ago  (1817)  the  valley  of  Bos- 
sons  was  300  feet  fuller  than  at  present,  and  the  ice- 
stream  stretched  a  third  of  a  mile  farther  down  the  val- 
ley. It  will  be  noticed  that  these  moraines  continue  far 
up  the  sides  of  the  glacier.  Let  me  ask  the  reader  to 
note  what  seems  a  vast  notch  in  the  northern  margin  of 
Glacier  des  Bossons.  A  huge  protuberance  of  rock  deflects 
the  glacier  to  the  south.  Formerly  the  ice  river  flowed 
over  this  obstacle.  I  have  stood  on  the  polished  surface 
which  bears  this  testimony.  A  vast  amount  of  moraine 
material  has  been  piled  up  at  the  foot  of  this  huge  preci- 
pice,—  for  huge  it  is,  though  at  this  distance  appearing 
somewhat  insignificant.  Farther  up  is  another  notch,  of 
smaller  dimensions,  produced  by  a  similar  cause.  Tame 


68  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

as  the  features  of  that  spot  may  appear  from  the  Brevent, 
eight  miles  away,  I  assure  the  reader  that  here  exists  a 
spectacle  of  awe-inspiring  sublimity.  A  lateral  portion 
of  the  glacier  terminates  here  abruptly.  Below  is  a 
smoothed  slope  of  rocky  surface,  at  the  foot  of  which 
yawns  a  profound  transverse  gulf,  beyond  which,  looking 
down  the  mountain,  rises,  to  the  altitude  of  fifty  or  sixty 
feet,  the  rocky  mass  which  obstructed  this  section  of  the 
glacier.  A  torrent  rushes  from  a  cavernous  opening  at 
the  foot  of  this  glacier  segment,  and,  roaring  down  the 
smoothed  declivity,  plunges  with  headlong  madness  into 
the  dark  gulf, —  dashing  itself  into  a  white  mist,  which 
rises  like  a  liberated  spirit  toward  heaven.  While  we 
stand  here,  awed  by  the  tremendous  voice  of  the  waters 
and  the  majesty  of  the  bristling  mountain  of  ice  which 
rises  above  us,  huge  boulders,  loosened  from  the  glacier's 
front  by  the  afternoon  sun,  come  crashing  and  ricochet- 
ing past  the  spot  on  which  we  stand,  notifying  us  that 
other  positions  may  be  more  secure. 

Escaping  to  the  nearest  bank,  we  find  ourselves  in  the 
vicinity  of  a  spot  called  Pierre  a  rfichelle,  to  which  we 
shall  again  refer.  A  little  to  the  left  of  this  descends  a 
spur  of  Aiguille  du  Midi,  which  is  known  as  Mont  Mi- 
mont.  On  its  flank,  overlooking  the  glacier,  is  Pierre 
Pointue,  one  of  the  halting  places  in  the  ascent  of  Mont 
Blanc.  This  is  the  limit  of  the  mule-path  and  about 
three  or  four  hours  from  Chamonix. 

The  customary  path  from  Pierre  Pointue  leads  to  the 
border  of  the  glacier,  in  the  vicinity  of  the  great  gulf, 
and  thence  along  its  margin  to  Pierre  a  FEchelle.  Here 
the  traveler  strikes  diagonally  across  Glacier  des  Bossons 
to  the  Grands  Mulcts.  Deflecting  toward  the  right,  he 


ASCENT   OF   MONT   BLANC.  69 

reaches  the  head  of  Glacier  de  Taconnay  ;  then,  looking 
up  the  mountain,  scales  the  "  Petites  Monties,"  or  Lesser 
Ice-Cliffs,  and  reaches  the  Little  Plateau  ("  Petit  Plateau  "), 
which  is  succeeded  by  the  Middle  Plateau  (Plateau  du 
Milieu).  From  this,  deflecting  slightly  to  the  left,  he 
proceeds  to  climb  the  Grandes  Montees,  or  Greater  Ice- 
Cliffs,  which  brings  him  to  the  Grand  Plateau.  Prom 
here  are  three  routes.  The  old  one  leads  directly  toward 
the  dome  of  Mont  Blanc;  another  turns  to  the  right,  to- 
ward Dome  du  Gouter,  and  thence,  by  the  Dromedary's 
Hump,  to  the  Summit.  The  third,  and  most  frequented, 
turns  to  the  left,  and,  leading  up  the  terrible  ascent  of 
the  "  Grande  Pente,"  brings  him  to  the  Corridor,  thence 
past  the  Rochers  Rouges,  the  Petits  Mulets,  the  Mur  de  la 
C6te  and  the  North  Calotte  to  the  summit. 

The  feelings  which  this  scene  inspires  almost  force  our 
attention  from  the  relative  positions  of  localities.  It  is 
not  alone  as  students  of  geography  that  we  gaze  upon 
the  vast  panorama  of  mountain  and  glacier  which  spreads 
before  us  like  a  map.  If  we  have  souls  still  blessed  with 
the  power  of  communion  with  the  soul  of  Nature,  they 
swell  with  the  inspiration  of  the  scene.  It  is  not  alone 
the  ragged  outline  of  the  precipice  or  the  grandly  sinu- 
ous form  of  the  stream  of  ice  which  occupies  our  atten- 
tion, but  even  more  than  these,  the  spirit  and  meaning, — 
nay  the  divine  revelation  breathed  by  these  gigantic  forms, 
which  absorbs  chiefly  the  attention  of  the  beholder.  One 
inhales  the  spirit  which  moved  Coleridge  when  he  penned 
the  "  Hymn  in  the  Vale  of  Chamonix." 

"Ye  ice-falls!  ye  that  from  the  mountain's  brow 
Adown  enormous  ravines  slope  amain, 
Torrents,  rnethinks,  that  heard  a  mighty  voice, 


"0  SPAEKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

And  stopped  at  once,  amid  their  maddest  plunge! 
Motionless  torrents!  silent  cataracts! 
Who  made  you  glorious  as  the  gates  of  heaven 
Beneath  the  keen  full  moon?    Who  bade  the  suu 
Clothe  you  with  rainbow?    Who,  with  living  flowers 
Of  loveliest  blue,  spread  garlands  at  your  feet? 
God!     Let  the  torrents  like  a  shout  of  nations 
Answer,  and  let  the  ice-plains  echo,  God!" 

Starting  from  Chamonix,  our  path  leads  for  half  a  mile 
through  a  grove  of  firs,  without  much  change  of  level; 
then  ascending  in  the  usual  zigzag  fashion,  we  soon  reach 
the  beautiful  little  Cascade  du  Dard,  which  we  contem- 
plate from  a  pavilion  or  chalet  which  offers  us  refresh- 
ments and  photographs  of  the  scenes  around  us.  A  lit- 
tle distance  beyond,  we  reach  the  torrent  des  Pelerins, 
which  issues  from  a  glacier  of  the  same  name,  and  has 
the  interesting  peculiarity  of  increasing  and  diminishing 
without  regard  to  the  weather, —  sometimes  descending 
with  a  devastating  flood  in  the  dryest  periods.  Here 
until  1853  existed  a  first-class  cascade,  when,  in  a  time 
of  flood,  the  blows  of  the  descending  blocks  were  so  power- 
ful as  to  batter  down  a  cliff  200  feet  high;  and  thus  this 
natural  curiosity,  yielding  the  keeper  of  the  rude  inn  a 
valuable  revenue  annually,  was  reduced  to  a  fifth-rate 
affair.  The  chalet  still  stands,  however,  and  the  oppor- 
tunity is  still  open  to  spend  a  few  francs  for  refreshments. 

The  ascent  next  brings  us  to  the  brow  of  a  ridge  over- 
looking a  ravine  strewed  with  shingle,  and  noisy  with  the 
headlong  rush  of  the  Torrent  des  Praz,  which  gushes  from 
the  upper  portion  of  the  Glacier  des  Bossons.  The  voy- 
ager here  looks  down  at  least  500  feet  into  a  gorge  which, 
in  times  not  geologically  remote,  must  have  been  filled 


ASCENT  OF   MONT   BLANC.  71 

with  a  spur  of  the  great  glacier  which  still  lives  in  the 
next  valley. 

We  now  rise  above  the  limit  of  trees,  and  begin  to  en- 
joy a  vast  and  magnificent  landscape.  Under  the  shadow 
of  the  last  trees  stand  the  chalets  of  Paraz.  We  are  now 
two  hours  from  Chamonix  and  more  than  5,000  feet  (5,264) 
elevated.  Between  here  and  Pierre  Pointue  the  broad, 
unshaded  acclivity  is  held  in  about  equal  parts  by  heaths 
and  angular  blocks  precipitated,  in  the  progress  of  ages, 
from  the  pinnacles  of  Midi,  which  tower  almost  directly 
above  our  heads. 

Pierre  Pointue  is  6,700  (6,722)  feet  high,— a  little 
higher  than  Mount  Washington.  Here  stands  a  truly  com- 
fortable little  inn,  kept  by  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
enterprising  guides  of  Chamonix,  Sylvain  Couttet.  Stand- 
ing on  the  terrace  of  the  inn,  we  look  back  upon  the  tree- 
tops  long  since  past,  and  down  into  the  quiet  valley  of 
Chamonix.  On  the  opposite  side  rises  the  Brevent,  from 
which  we  obtained  our  panoramic  view  of  this  situation. 
A  little  farther  to  the  right  is  the  Flegere;  and  behind 
and  above  both  rise  the  red  pinnacles  of  the  range  of  the 
Aiguilles  Rouges.  Above  us,  and  almost  over  our  heads, 
shoot  up  the  spires  of  the  Aiguilles  du  Midi.  Not  far 
off  to  the  south  flows  the  rugged  river  of  ice  which  we 
are  soon  to  cross;  while  far  up,  over  the  fields  of  firn, 
rise  the  Aiguille  and  the  Dome  du  Goiiter.  Mont  Blanc 
is  hid  by  Mont  Mimont.  We  are  already  in  the  realm 
of  the  clouds,  and  their  damp,  pale  forms  ride  past  us  like 
the  spirits  of  the  mountains. 

We  press  on  around  the  steep  slope  of  Mont  Mimont, 
which  dives  down  like  a  Gothic  roof  from  the  craggy 
crest  projected  against  the  blue  sky,  and  almost  crowds 


72  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

our  path  into  a  dark  chasm  awful  to  stand  over.  On  the 
sunny  slope  of  this  mountain  Alpine  flowers  flourish  in 
equal  beauty  and  abundance.  I  gathered  here  twenty- 
three  species, —  among  them,  the  white  gentian.  In  an 
hour  we  have  reached  the  station  called  Pierre  a  1'fichelle. 
This  is  a  block  of  granite  twenty  feet  high,  over  which 
hangs  the  Aiguille  du  Midi.  The  guides  call  to  the  rocks 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  glacier,  and  Aiguille  de  la 
Tour  echoes  back  a  distinct  response.  Vegetation  con- 
tinues beautifully  developed.  Rhododendrons,  or  Alpine 
roses,  are  plentiful. 

A  little  beyond  this  spot  we  take  leave  of  the  solid 
land,  to  grapple  with  the  difficulties  of  ice  and  snow.  As 
in  all  cases,  the  boundary  line  of  the  glacier  is  a  belt  of 
disputed  territory.  Ice,  rocks,  gravel  and  earth  promis- 
cuously mixed,  form  an  obstacle  requiring  strength  and 
agility  to  pass  it.  Even  at  the  outset,  real  dangers  threaten 
us,  for  avalanches  of  ice  and  stones  are  almost  perpetu- 
ally precipitated  from  the  heights  of  the  crest  running 
from  the  Aiguille  du  Midi  to  Mont  Maudit. 

These  dangers  and  difficulties  passed,  it  is  customary 
to  attach  the  whole  party  together  by  means  of  a  com- 
mon cord.  Thus,  an  individual  so  unfortunate  as  to  slip 
on  a  dangerous  slope,  or  to  drop  into  a  concealed  crevasse, 
will  be  held  up  by  his  companions.  At  the  same  time, 
the  rope  is  liable  to  convert  the  accident  of  one  into  the 
disaster  of  the  whole  party.  But  the  good  chances  out- 
weigh the  bad;  and,  as  any  individual  may  be  the  one  to 
meet  with  an  accident,  all  are  willing  to  take  the  risk  of 
being  made  the  sharer  of  some  other's  misfortune, —  a 
sort  of  life  insurance  on  the  mutual  plan. 

The  mass  of  ice  is  cleft  by  crevasses  running  in  every 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  73 

direction.  Some  of  these  we  leap  across  with  a  vivid  con- 
sciousness that  our  foothold,  on  either  brink,  is  but  the 
slippery  ice.  If  too  broad  to  leap,  a  light  ladder  is  thrown 
across  to  serve  as  a  bridge.  Over  this  the  tin; id  crawl 
on  hands  and  knees.  The  thought  of  being  suspended 
by  the  rung  of  a  ladder  over  a  dark  abyss  without  visi- 
ble bottom  is  well  calculated  to  arouse  the  nervousness 
of  the  most  stolid.  The  snows  of  winter  bridge  many 
of  the  crevasses,  and  when  these  bridges  are  softened  by 
the  sun  they  become  pitfalls,  requiring  the  skill  of  ex- 
perienced guides  to  detect  them.  The  danger  is  greatly 
increased  when  the  crevasses  are  concealed  by  freshly 
fallen  snow. 

The  intersection  of  the  crevasses  cuts  the  ice  into  vast 
prismoidal  masses,  standing  vertically.  The  increasing 
separation  of  the  walls  of  the  chasms  gives  these  blocks  a 
soi't  of  isolation.  Very  often,  the  lateral  pressure,  or  some 
subglacial  protuberance  of  rock,  suffices  to  thrust  such 
ice-masses  into  the  air.  These  effects  occur  especially  in 
the  neighborhood  of  the  junction  of  Glacier  des  Bossons 
with  Glacier  de  Taconnay.  This  region  is  rather  the 
parting  of  the  broad  field  of  ice  by  the  protruding  rocky 
ridge  called  Aiguille  de  la  Tour.  Striking  against  this, 
the  ice-field  is  terribly  wrenched.  Outliers  of  this  ridge 
crop  out  through  the  ice,  from  a  quarter  of  a  mile  to  two 
miles  above,  and  other  protuberances  must  exist,  under- 
lying the  ice  and  heaving  it  up  into  the  chaotic  aspects 
which  it  presents.  The  very  entrance  upon  this  tre- 
mendous cataract  of  ice  is  through  a  sort  of  natural  tun- 
nel. Once  in  the  region  of  the  Junction,  a  fearful  laby- 
rinth lies  before  us.  It  seems  at  a  glance  impossible  to 
cross.  Here  are  some  of  the  greatest  difficulties  encoun- 


74 


SPAEKS    PROM    A    GEOLOGISTS    HAMMER. 


tered  in  the  route  to  Mont  Blanc.  Pyramidal  towers  of 
ice  are  uplifted  before  us  to  the  height  of  20  to  50  feet. 
S6racs,  rising  in  glittering  columns,  seem  tottering  from 
their  base.  Some,  even,  by  the  thawing  action  of  the  sun, 
rest  on  bases  less  in  diameter  than  themselves, —  ruined 
pillars  of  gigantic  fairy  palaces, —  a  very  Persepolis  of  ice. 


SERACS   NEAR    THE   JUNCTION    OF   GLACIERS    DBS    BOSSONS   AND  DE 
TACONNAY.      PROM   A   PHOTOGRAPH   BY  J.   LEVY   ET   CIE.,   PARIS. 

All  about  us  are  effects  on  a  scale  of  magnitude  which 
almost  staggers  the  understanding.  It  seems  as  if  a  sea 
had  been  solidified,  then  lifted  up  into  the  air  and  dashed 
upon  the  rocks. 

These  tremendous  effects,  however,  have  been  achieved 
by  the  agency  of  forces  at  work  before  our  eyes,  and  be- 


ASCENT   OF   MONT   BLANC.  75 

neath  our  feet.  Even  while  we  stand  here  the  Titanic 
forces  are  cracking-  and  crunching  the  glaciers,  and  the 
deep  thud  which  we  hear  makes  us  crawl  with  appre- 
hension. Even  before  our  eyes  the  great  unfathomed 
stream  of  ice  is  marching  on.  While  we  stand  gazing 
upon  it  the  huge  serac  rises  or  topples.  At  our  verv  feet 
the  dark  crevasse  opens  its  jaws  wider  and  wider. 


INCIPIENT  CREVASSES  AT  JUNCTION  AND  THE  PLATEAU.  ASCENT 
OP  MONT  BLANC.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  J.  LEVY  ET  CIE., 
PARIS. 

But,  like  so  many  of  the  grandest  operations  of  Nature, 
—  like  the  uplift  of  mountains  and  the  building  of  con- 
tinents,—  these  operations  are  slow, —  resistless  though 
slow.  The  stream  of  ice  moves  but  two  feet  in  24  hours. 


76  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

The  snow  which  falls  on  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc  re- 
quires 50  years  to  reach  the  foot  of  Glacier  des  Bossons. 
Like  a  stream  of  water,  its  velocity  is  slackened  when  its 
valley  is  widened,  and  accelerated  when  it  narrows.  When 
it  reaches  the  brink  of  a  steeper  descent  it  breaks, —  often 
with  a  report  like  the  bass  voice  of  the  mountain  calling 
to  the  sky.  The  fissure  at  first  is  but  an  inch  or  two, 
but  it  widens  sometimes  to  a  hundred  feet,  and  acquires 
a  depth  of  a  thousand.  If  the  declivity  is  steep,  the 
glacier  is  parted  at  intervals  of  a  few  feet.  A  short  dis- 
tance above  the  chinks  are  narrow.  Approaching  the  brink 
of  the  decline  they  grow  wider.  On  the  steep  slope  the 
whole  stream,  like  water,  is  thrown  i*-to  a  state  of  wild 
confusion. 

We  escape  from  this  labyrinth  of  ice  by  clambering  up 
an  almost  vertical  ascent  called  the  Mont6e  de  la  Cote.  It 
is  rifted  in  all  directions  by  yawning  crevasses,  and  the 
only  practicable  passage  from  block  to  block  is  by  means 
of  ladders.  Sometimes  we  are  suspended  over  a  frightful 
chasm.  Sometimes  we  are  compelled  to  scale  a  vertical 
cliff  of  ice.  Sometimes  there  is  no  alternative  but  to 
travel  at  the  foot  of  an  icy  precipice  over  piles  of  snow 
and  ice  hurled  down  from  the  long  slope  above. 

The  rocks  of  the  Grands  Mulcts  now  appear  in  sight, — 
tne  pinnacles  of  a  mountain  protruding  660  feet  above 
the  field  of  ice.  Perched  up  on  the  side  of  the  lower 
one  can  be  seen  the  two  cabins  erected  by  the  guides  of 
Chamonix  for  the  accommodation  of  voyageurs.  The  best 
view  of  these  is  from  a  position  beyond  and  above.  From 
this  position  the  pointed  architecture  of  the  Aiguilles  du 
Midi  may  be  seen  rising  in  the  background.  From  a 
somewhat  higher  position  we  obtain  an  enchanting  view 


ASCENT   OF    MONT    BLANC.  77 

of  the  valley  of  Chamonix  and  the  cloud-wreathed  moun- 
tains which  rise  on  the  other  side.  Chamonix  and  the 
other  villages  are  distinctly  seen,  as  well  as  the  fields,  the 
highways  and  the  rivers  Arve  and  Arveiron. 


CABINS  OP  THE  GRANDS  MULETS  WITH  AIG.  DU  MIDI   IN  THE  BACK- 
GROUND (SEEN  FROM  ABOVE).    ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.    FROM 

A  PHOTOGRAPH   BY  J.   LEVY   ET   CIE.,  PARIS. 

To  the  best  of  these  two  cabins  we  are  only  too  eager 
to  turn  in  search  of  rest  for  our  wearied  limbs.  No 
charge  for  shelter,  and  for  meals  and  rude  lodgings  no 
exorbitant  demands.  The  best  of  these  cabins  is  divided 
into  two  apartments,  in  one  of  which  the  ladies  of  a 
party  enjoy  a  comfortable  seclusion.  We  are  now  eight 
hours  from  Chamonix  —  eight  working  hours, —  and  10,000 


78  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

feet  above  the  sea-level.  The  sun  is  sinking  behind  the 
needles  of  the  Aiguilles  Eouges,  and  our  day's  toil  is 
ended.  Here  we  must  endeavor  to  gain  such  sleep  as  the 
place  affords,  and  make  an  early  start  on  the  morrow. 
We  retire  as  soon  as  the  bars  of  slanting  sunlight  have 
been  lifted  from  the  head  of  Dome  du  Gouter,  which  rises 
under  the  calm  sky  above  us.  It  is  already  dark  in  the 
valley. 

Following  the  custom,  we  repose  without  removing 
any  clothing.  The  night  is  chill,  and  three  blankets  are 
not  refused. 

It  is  always  the  case  that  when  most  anxious  to  sleep 
we  sleep  the  least.  Another  party  occupies  the  adjoin- 
ing apartment,  and,  having  no  purpose  to  ascend  farther. 
they  feel  no  need  of  devoting  the  early  hours  to  sleep. 
But  we  must  turn  out  at  two  in  the  morning.  Our 
neighbors'  conversation  is  but  partially  deadened  by  the 
board  partition,  and,  though  carried  on  in  low  tones,  is 
but  too  audible.  We  make  most  desperate  efforts  to  sleep, 
but  our  heads  are  like  beehives  when  the  inmates  swarm. 
Instead  of  sleeping,  we  perform  triple  woi'k  at  thinking. 

At  length  all  is  quiet,  and  the  poppy  has  sweetly  com- 
posed our  eyelids. 

Rap!  rap! — it  is  the  guide  calling  us  to  another  day's 
work. 

We  set  out  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  morning,  by 
the  light  of  lanterns.  Traveling  mechanically,  and  half 
asleep,  we  traverse  an  expanse  of  ice  which  forms  the  up- 
per limits  of  the  Glacier  de  Taconnay,  and  encounter  an 
almost  vertical  escarpment  of  ice,  about  300  feet  high, 
called  the  Petites  Monties.  Gazing  in  dumb  amazement 
at  this  tremendous  ice- wall,  we  notice  that  the  clear  but 


ASCENT  OF   MONT   BLANC.  79 

rugged  ice  below  is  surmounted  by  an  entablature  of 
stratified  snow,  giving  us  architrave,  frieze  and  cornice, 
in  due  succession.  We  halt  for  the  chief  guide  to  cut 
steps;  and  then  follow  in  a  zigzag  path  to  the  Little  Pla- 
teau, after  a  march  of  three  hours.  An  hour  later  we 
reach  the  Middle  Plateau.  This  is  bounded  by  another 
glacier  cascade  called  the  Grandes  Montees,  shattered  ice 
and  yawning  crevasses,  and  dusky  caverns  with  icicles 
hanging  from  their  snowy  eaves.  This  slope  escaladed, 
we  are  on  the  borders  of  the  Grand  Plateau.  The  giant 
domes  of  the  mountains  now  rise  above  our  horizon. 

The  Grand  Plateau  is  a  vast  plain  of  snow,  or  rather, 
a  broad,  shallow  firn-valley,  about  13,000  feet  above  the 
sea-level.  It  is  bounded  by  the  dome  of  Mont  Blanc, 
which  lies  directly  in  front  of  us,  Dome  du  Gouter  at  our 
right,  and  Mont  Maudit  at  our  left.  The  old  route  pur- 
sued by  Balmat  and  De  Saussure  lies  directly  across  the 
Plateau;  but  the  labors  of  the  final  ascent  are  terrible 
and  the  dangers  imminent.  Another  route  more  fre- 
quented leads  to  our  right,  by  the  Dome  du  Gouter,  and 
thence  across  the  narrow  crest  connecting  with  the  bosses 
of  the  Dromedary  and  Mont  Blanc.  This  route  is  joined, 
at  Dome  du  Gouter,  by  the  path  from  St.  Gervais.  The 
third  and  most  frequented  route  diverges  to  the  left  into 
the  col  or  depression,  sepai-ating  Mont  Blanc  from  Mont 
Maudit,  and  known  as  the  Corridor. 

We  are  now  approaching  what  has  been  styled  "  the 
region  of  accidents."  The  Grand  Plateau  is  detached  by 
a  series  of  Grand  Crevasses  from  the  mountain  slopes 
which  rise  on  the  farther  side  of  it.  These  crevasses  are 
of  such  width  and  depth  as  to  be  absolutely  impassable 
except  in  places  where  filled  by  avalanches  of  snow  de- 


80  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

scending  from  above.  The  first  catastrophe  resulting  from 
adventure  upon  Mont  Blanc  left  three  guides  buried  in 
the  Grand  Crevasse.  It  was  in  1820  (August  19).  Dr. 
Hamel,  a  Russian  naturalist,  accompanied  by  two  En- 
glishmen, Messrs.  Durnford  and  Henderson,  and  eight 
guides,  had  imprudently  forced  his  guides  to  proceed  from 
the  Grands  Mulcts  on  the  morning  of  a  day  threatening 
stormy  weather.  They  pursued  the  direct  route,  and  had 
safely  crossed  the  Grand  Crevasse.  They  were  climbing 
the  last  ascent.  They  were  pursuing  a  zigzag  course,  in 
single  file,  about  600  feet  above  the  Grand  Crevasse.  The 
freshly  fallen  snow  was  about  15  inches  deep.  Suddenly 
it  began  to  slide  down  the  steep  descent.  One  of  the  guides 
had  the  presence  of  mind  and  muscular  strength  to  force 
his  baton  in  the  old  snow  underneath  the  new  and  main- 
tain his  position,  while  the  avalanche  passed  by.  The  oth- 
ers were  thrown  from  their  feet  and  borne  along  with 
accelerating  velocity  toward  the  pit  which  opened  at  the 
foot  of  the  slope.  Three  of  the  guides  were  buried  there, 
beneath  200  feet  of  snow  which  poured  in  upon  them. 
The  others  escaped. 

The  unfortunate  guides  lost  in  the  Grand  Crevasse 
have  furnished  mournful  testimony  to  the  steady  march 
of  the  glaciers.  Forty-one  years  afterward  (in  1861),  on 
the  lower  part  of  the  Glacier  des  Bossons,  some  dark  ob- 
jects were  observed  in  the  ice,  gradually  approaching 
nearer  and  nearer  the  surface.  At  length  they  were  re- 
moved and  found  to  consist  of  a  portfolio,  a  piece  of  a 
pocket  diary,  a  fragment  of  a  bottle,  the  remains  of  a 
spiked  alpenstock  and  a  lantern.  The  entries  in  the  diary 
remained  perfectly  legible,  and  testified  to  a  certainty 
that  these  debris  had  belonged  to  the  unfortunate  guides 


ASCENT   OF    MONT    BLANC.  81 

of  the  Hamel  expedition.  Two  years  later  some  of  the 
remains  of  the  bodies  of  the  victims  came  to  the  surface; 
and  from  time  to  time  numerous  other  fragments  have 
appeared  and  been  identified  by  the  clothing  which  ac- 
companied them.  Thus  it  appears  that  these  bodies  trav- 
eled from  26,000  to  29,000  feet  in  forty-one  years,  or  about 
680  feet  a  year.  As  they  were  buried  200  feet  beneath 
the  surface,  it  seems  that  200  feet  of  ice  had  been  melted 
from  the  surface  of  the  glacier  in  the  same  interval. 

A  similar  accident  occurred  in  nearly  the  same  spot  in 
1866  (October  13).  Captain  Arkwright,  of  the  English 
army,  was  ascending  Mont  Blanc  with  three  guides  and  a 
porter.  His  sister  accompanied  him  to  the  Grands  Mulcts, 
and  there  awaited  his  return.  His  party  was  followed 
by  Sylvain  Couttet  and  a  German  gentleman,  Winkart, 
whom  he  was  guiding  to  the  summit.  The  two  caravans 
had  crossed  the  Grand  Plateau,  and  were  scaling  the  ter- 
rible steeps  leading  up  to  the  crown.  Arkwright's  chief 
guide  was  in  advance,  cutting  steps  in  the  ice.  Couttet 
insisted  on  relieving  him;  and  so  Winkart  and  Couttet 
passed  in  advance.  This  change  of  positions  had  hardly 
been  effected  when  a  terrific  crack  was  heard  in  the  ice 
above.  Couttet,  comprehending  the  situation,  cried  out, 
"Save  yourselves!  To  the  right!  To  the  right!  Lie 
down!"  He  and  Winkart  instantly  crouched  beneath  a 
precipice  of  ice,  while  a  terrific  avalanche  of  huge  blocks 
of  ice,  crashing  down  the  slope  above,  accompanied  with 
clouds  of  snow  and  pulverized  ice,  leaped  over  them  from 
the  brink  of  the  ice-cliff  which  sheltered  them.  Couttet 
and  Winkart  were  safe,  but  the  other  four  were  hurried 
into  an  abyss  from  which  no  trace  of  them  has  ever  been 
recovered. 


82  SPAKKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMEK. 

What  a  message  was  left  for  Couttet  to  carry  to  Ark- 
wright's  sister!  He  returned  to  the  Grands  Mulcts,  but 
could  not  summon  the  courage  to  enter.  He  narrated 
the  catastrophe  to  some  brother  guides,  and  implored  them 
to  break  the  sad  news  to  the  young  lady,  but  they  could 
not  be  persuaded.  Finally  he  took  courage  and  opened  the 
door.  She  was  seated  at  the  farther  side  of  the  apart- 
ment by  a  window,  with  an  album  in  her  lap,  making  a 
sketch  of  the  Dome  du  Gouter.  Sylvain,  seeing  her  so 
tranquil  and  unsuspecting,  was  overpowered  by  the  sad- 
ness of  the  message  which  he  came  to  deliver.  He  paused; 
he  remained  motionless,  without  the  power  to  pronounce 
a  word.  She  turned  her  head;  she  saw  him  and  cried, 
"My  brother,  Sylvain!"  "I  was  unable  to  speak,"  said 
Sylvain  to  M.  Durier,  who  relates  the  incident.  "  My 
throat  was  choked;  I  could  only  throw  up  my  arms.  She 
turned  as  white  as  the  snow;  she  arose;  she  went  to  the 
window;  she  kneeled;  she  uttered  a  prayer  with  her 
eyes  toward  heaven, —  then  came  directly  to  me  and  in- 
quired, '  How  did  it  happen?1  As  soon  as  I  could  speak 
I  said  to  her,  '  We  will  look  for  him  to-morrow.'  "  * 

The  Grand  Crevasse  has  been  the  scene  of  an  accident 
of  a  different  kind.  On  the  9th  of  August,  1864,  two 
Austrian  Counts, —  Schonkirchen  and  Wurmbrand, —  had 
safely  effected  the  ascent,  and  were  returning  in  the  af- 
ternoon, by  the  same  route,  across  the  Grand  Plateau. 
They  had  crossed  the  Grand  Crevasse  in  the  morning  by 
a  snow-bridge,  which,  though  appearing  less  secure  than 
desirable,  carried  them  safely  over.  They  reached  it  on 
the  return  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The 
day  was  mild,  and  the  sun  had  softened  the  snow  to  an 

*Durier,  Histoire  du  Mont  Blanc,  pp.  84,  85. 


ASCENT   OF    MONT    BLANC.  83 

unusual  extent.  The  leading  guide  was  proceeding  cau- 
tiously over  this  bridge.  He  had  reached  the  middle  of 
it,  when,  to  the  consternation  of  his  companions,  he 
dropped  suddenly  out  of  their  sight.  The  bridge  had 
yielded,  and  he  had  disappeared  in  the  icy  abyss.  They 
tied  together  the  ropes  which  they  carried  with  them, 


GRAND  CREVASSE  AT  THE  FARTHER  BORDER  OF  THE  GRAND 
PLATEAU.  ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY 
J.  LEVY  ET  CIE.,  PARIS. 

and  let  the  line  down  into  the  crevasse,  but  no  hand 
seized  it.  No  voice,  no  moan  arose  from  the  darkness 
which  concealed  the  bottom.  The  next  day  a  rescuing 
party,  brought  from  Chamonix,  lowered  one  of  their  num- 
ber 160  feet  into  the  crevasse,  but  without  the  discovery 


84  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

of  the  victim  or  the  bottom.  Hair  and  blood  were  seen 
on  the  walls  of  the  chasm,  but  the  remains  will  only  be 
recovered  at  the  end  of  a  funeral  march  of  forty  years. 
These  accidents  all  transpired  on  the  direct  route.  Let 
us  turn  to  the  left,  and  make  an  ascent  by  the  Corridor. 
We  cross  the  Grand  Crevasse  and  scale  the  fearful  slope 
which  borders  the  Grand  Plateau  on  three  sides.  We  are 
in  the  Corridor.  We  have  gained  an  elevation  from  which 
we  look  over  the  Alps  —  into  the  land  of  Italy.  A  stiff 
breeze  is  drawn  through  this  depression,  which  penetrates 
to  the  moistened  skin.  Such  a  breeze,  in  this  very  spot, 
was  the  occasion  of  the  first  lady  victim  in  the  history 
of  ascensions.  It  was  on  the  2d  of  August.  1870.  Mrs. 
Mark  and  Miss  Wilkinson  were  on  the  way  to  the  sum- 
mit in  company  with  Mr.  Mark  and  a  couple  of  guides. 
Arriving  in  the  Corridor,  the  strength  of  the  ladies  gave 
way,  and  they  resolved  to  remain  with  one  guide  while 
Mr.  Mark  and  the  other  proceeded  to  the  summit.  But 
the  frigid  wind  induced  the  ladies  to  seek  a  position  a 
little  lower  and  more  sheltered.  Mrs.  Mark  was  nearly 
exhausted  and  leaned  upon  the  arm  of  the  guide.  Sud- 
denly both  sank  through  the  snow  into  a  concealed 
crevasse,  of  which  no  sign  presented  itself  at  the  surface. 
Miss  Wilkinson's  shrieks  brought  back  Mr.  Mark  and 
his  guide.  Nothing  could  be  heard,  and  nothing  seen, 
except  the  hole  in  the  snow  perforated  by  the  united 
weight  of  two  persons.  The  guide's  politeness  had  cost 
them  both  their  lives.  The  next  day  Sylvain  Couttet 
was  let  down  by  a  rope  to  the  depth  of  65  feet.  Here 
the  walls  of  the  crevasse  were  so  much  approximated 
that  he  was  unable  to  descend  farther.  By  means  of  his 
staff  he  ascertained  that  the  fissure  enlarged  six  feet  be- 


ASCENT  OF   MONT   BLANC.  85 

low  this  strait,  and  he  could  feel  there  the  pile  of  snow 
which  descended  with  the  victims,  and  beneath  which  they 
lay  entombed.  The  momentum  of  their  fall  had  crushed 
them  through  the  narrows  of  the  crevasse,  and  their 
blood  had  been  left  upon  its  walls  to  record  the  terrible 
tale. 


SUMMIT  OF  MONT  BLANC  AS  SEEN  FROM  THE  GRAND  PLATEAU. 
ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  BY  J.  LEVY 
ET  CIE.,  PARIS. 

Turning  to  the  right  from  the  Corridor,  we  ascend,  by 
steps  cut  in  the  hard  snow,  the  steep  which  leads  to  the 
summit  of  the  Rochers  Rouges.  The  last  rocks  seen  are 
the  Petits  Mulcts.  Thence  we  ascend  another  acclivity 
called  the  Mur  de  la  Cote.  This  has  been  also  the  scene 


86  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

of  a  dreadful  catastrophe.  On  the  5th  of  September,  1870, 
a  successful  trip  to  the  summit  had  been  effected  by  two 
American  gentlemen,  Mr.  Randall,  of  Newburyport,  and 
Dr.  Bean,  of  Baltimore,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Corkindale, 
of  Scotland,  and  eight  guides, —  in  all  eleven  persons.  Not 
one  of  these  ever  returned.  They  were  seen  from  Cha- 
monix  to  have  begun  the  descent.  In  a  few  minutes 
they  were  concealed  from  view  by  thick  clouds,  which 
were  followed  by  a  violent  tempest  of  snow.  At  evening 
they  had  not  returned.  Two  days  after  an  effort  was 
made  by  a  rescuing  party  to  reach  the  summit,  but  the 
unchained  tempest  compelled  them  to  return.  It  was  not 
till  the  17th  of  September  that  relief  could  reach  the 
spot  where  the  party  had  been  seen  enwrapped  in  the 
whirlwind  of  snow.  Relief,  of  course,  was  unavailing. 
At  the  summit  of  the  Mur  de  la  Cote  were  found  the 
bodies  of  Corkindale  and  two  of  the  guides;  a  little  above 
were  the  bodies  of  Dr.  Bean  and  another  guide.  These 
corpses  were  completely  congealed.  The  six  remaining 
victims  could  not  be  found.  Some  notes  in  a  pocket 
diary  of  Dr.  Bean  impart  all  the  further  knowledge  in 
our  possession  respecting  the  last  anguish  of  these  unfor- 
tunates. 

"  Tuesday,  September  6.  I  have  made  the  ascent  of 
Mont  Blanc  with  ten  persons, —  eight  guides  and  Mr. 
Corkindale  and  Mr.  Randall.  We  reached  the  summit  at 
half-past  two  o'clock.  Immediately  after  having  quitted 
it  we  were  enveloped  in  clouds  of  snow.  We  have  passed 
the  night  in  a  grotto  dug  in  the  snow,  which  affords  us 
only  a  very  imperfect  shelter,  and  I  have  been  sick  all 
night. 

September   7,   morning.      Cold    excessive ;    much    snow, 


ASCENT  OP   MONT   BLANC.  87 

which  falls  without  cessation.  The  guides  are  very  un- 
easy. 

September  7,  evening.  My  dear  Hessie,  we  have  been 
two  days  upon  Mont  Blanc,  in  the  midst  of  a  terrible 
tempest  of  snow.  We  have  lost  our  way  [they  were 
only  a  few  steps  from  the  usual  line  of  descent],  and  we 
are  in  a  hole  dug  in  the  snow,  at  a  height  of  15,000 
feet.  I  have  no  hope  of  descending.  Perhaps  this  note- 
book will  be  found  and  sent  to  you.  We  have  nothing 
to  eat.  My  feet  are  already  frozen,  and  I  am  exhausted. 
I  have  only  the  power  to  write  a  few  words.  [All  this 
was  written  in  characters  larger  and  larger,  and  almost 
illegible].  Tell  C.  that  I  have  left  the  means  for  her 
education.  I  know  that  you  will  employ  them  properly. 
I  die  in  the  faith  of  God,  and  in  thoughts  of  love  for 
you.  Adieu  to  all.  I  hope  we  shall  meet  again  in 
heaven.  Yours  forever." 

A  catastrophe  still  different  from  any  which  I  have 
related  transpired  in  nearly  the  same  situation  upon  the 
North  Calotte  of  the  mountain  dome.  Three  young  Scot- 
tish noblemen,  brothers,  by  the  name  of  Young,  resolved, 
against  all  remonstrances,  to  ascend  Mont  Blanc  without 
the  assistance  of  guides.  Following  the  tracks  of  a  pre- 
ceding caravan,  they  made  the  ascent  with  complete  suc- 
cess, on  the  23d  of  August,  1866.  The  weather  was  fine, 
and  they  were  watched  with  telescopes  from  Chamonix. 
On  commencing  their  descent,  it  was  observed  that  they 
were  pursuing  a  course  a  little  too  far  to  the  north.  The 
slope  was  very  steep  and  very  smooth.  The  hindermost 
bi-other  was  seen  to  slip  and  commence  a  glissade.  His 
connection  with  the  two  others  by  means  of  a  cord  was 
the  cause  of  their  fall.  Within  a  few  seconds  the  three 


88  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

brothers  had  slid  800  feet  to  the  brink  of  a  vertical 
precipice  of  ice.  Over  this  they  shot,  and  landed  50  feet 
below  upon  a  pile  of  snow  and  ice,  which  carried  them 
150  feet  farther.  All  seemed  dead  for  some  instants,  but 
the  oldest  was  only  stunned;  the  second  brother  was  both 
stunned  and  oppressed  by  the  stupor  often  experienced  in 
ascending  high  mountains ;  the  youngest,  however,  was 
lifeless. 

All  this  was  seen  from  Chamonix.  In  ten  minutes  a 
caravan  of  eight  persons  was  on  its  way  to  the  rescue. 
The  next  day  news  came  from  the  Grands  Mulets  con- 
firming all  that  had  been  apprehended.  The  two  surviv- 
ing brothers  had  arrived  there  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening, —  the  younger  blind.  A  storm  coming  on,  an- 
other caravan  set  out  to  rescue  the  first,  and,  at  a  later 
hour,  still  a  third.  The  first  rescuers  had  become  envel- 
oped in  a  blinding  storm,  and  could  not  pick  their  way. 
They  had  reached  the  region  of  imminent  dangers,  and 
dared  not  advance.  One  of  the  following  caravans  found 
them  on  the  brink  of  that  terrific  precipice,  500  feet  high, 
which  stretches  from  the  Mont  Maudit  to  the  Eochers 
Rouges, —  known  to  the  guides  as  the  Grand  Pente.  All 
arrived  safely  at  Chamonix  after  the  storm,  bearing  the 
body  of  the  unfortunate  youth,  whose  neck  had  been 
broken  in  the  terrible  glissade.* 

From  these  narratives  it  appears  that  the  great  dan- 
gers of  the  ascent  lie  between  the  Grand  Plateau  and 
the  summit,  and  that  they  consist  of  five  classes:  1.  Pro- 
tracted snow-storms  accompanied  by  severe  cold.  2.  The 

*For  the  particulars  of  this  and  other  catastrophes  occurring  previous  to 
18«9  T  am  indebted  to  the  admirable  Guide  ffineraire  du  Mont  Blanc,  by  Ve- 
nance  Payot,  naturalist,  at  Chamonix  For  particulars  of  later  accidents  I 
have  consulted  Durier's  Histoire  du  Mont  Blanc. 


ASCENT   OF   MONT   BLANC.  89 

disengagement  of  avalanches  of  freshly  fallen  snow.  3. 
The  precipitation  of  avalanches  of  snow  and  ice.  4.  The 
loss  of  foothold  and  a  fatal  glissade.  5.  The  treachery 
of  snow-bridges  over  crevasses. 

This  catalogue  is  too  long  to  be  very  comforting,  but 
I  think  it  may  be  safely  asserted  that  the  Chamonix  guides, 
if  well  selected,  and  allowed  to  exercise  their  own  judg- 
ment, will  not  lead  the  voyager  into  any  very  extraordi- 
nary dangers.  They  are  generally  an  intelligent,  truthful 
and  honest  class  of  men.  Their  services  are  regulated  by 
a  system  of  public  ordinances,  and  only  guides  of  knowl- 
edge and  experience  are  permitted  to  conduct  parties  to 
the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc. 

We  complete  now  our  last  ascent,  and  enjoy  the  fruits 
of  the  labors  and  dangers  of  the  past  two  days.  I  do  not 
like  to  affirm  an  exact  equation  between  the  fruits  and  the 
labors.  It  is  true  that  we  can  turn  about  and  look  down 
on  the  clouds  which  hover  over  Chamonix,  and  toss  our 
heads  in  disdain  over  the  summit  of  the  terrible  Mont 
Maudit.  It  is  true  that  we  can  turn  upon  the  heel  and 
see  below  us  the  summits  of  the  Aiguille  du  Geant  and 
the  Grandes  Jorasses,  and  look  down  in  the  dish-shaped 
ice-field  which  forms  the  great  Glacier  de  Talefre,  with 
the  Jardin  blooming  in  its  midst.  It  is  true  that  we  can 
discern  in  the  dim  distance  the  conical  form  of  the  grim 
and  solitary  Matterhorn,  and  the  frosted  heads  which 
look  up  to  it  from  the  neighborhood.  It  is  true  that  we 
can  turn  still  farther  on  our  heel  and  see  the  fleecy  backs 
of  clouds  which  float  over  the  glacier  of  Ruitoi-s  and  the 
valley  of  Aosta,  on  the  Italian  side  of  the  Great  St.  Ber- 
nard. But  in  all  truth  and  candor  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  realization  is  not  commensurate  with  the  antici- 


90  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

pation.  Even  a  less  impulsive  and  less  sentimental  trav- 
eler than  De  Saussure  would  feel  moved  to  stamp  his 
foot  in  a  sort  of  impatient  disappointment. 

But  the  situation,  though  less  abounding  in  spectacu- 
lar interest  than  we  may  have  anticipated,  is  plentiful 
in  suggestions  and  reminiscences.  This  spot  has  been 
the  goal  of  a  great  deal  of  ambition.  Besides  the  idle  and 
fruitless  ambition  of  the  mere  curiosity-hunter,  science,  in 
the  person  of  De  Saussure,  labored  a  quarter  of  a  century 
to  accomplish  what  is  now  accomplished  by  not  less  than 
50  tourists  and  100  guides  annually.  De  Saussure  made 
a  sojourn  of  two  weeks  on  the  rocks  of  the  Col  du  Geant 
for  the  purpose  of  scientific  observation.  MM.  Charles 
Martins,  Bravais  and  Lepileur,  more  daring,  planted  their 
tent  upon  the  snow-fields  of  the  Grand  Plateau,  at  an  ele- 
vation of  13,000  feet,  and  there  passed  several  days.  They 
improvised  a  floor  of  fir  boards  laid  upon  the  snow.  One 
may  form  an  idea  of  what  devotion  to  science  means 
when  informed  that  in  that  situation  the  rarefaction 
of  the  atmosphere  is  such  that  charcoal  ceases  to  burn 
the  moment  one  ceases  to  blow  it,  and  that  consequently 
these  men,  assailed  by  a  terrific  snowstorm,  had  only  the 
flame  of  a  spirit-lamp  to  keep  them  company  during  the 
night.  Their  example  was  followed  by  Dr.  Pitschner,  in 
1859  and  in  1861;  but  he  placed  his  tent  at  the  Grands 
Mulcts  3,000  feet  lower.  In  1859  Tyndall  and  Frank- 
land,  also,  spent  twenty  hours  upon  the  summit,  including 
one  entire  night.  They  slept  with  six  porters  and  three 
guides  under  a  light  tent  upon  the  snow,  the  tempera- 
ture of  which  was  but  five  degrees  above  zero.  Tyndall 
tells  us  that  though  the  north  wind  blew  fiercely,  they 
suffered  nothing  from  cold  during  the  night.  They  had 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  91 

with  them  six  candles,  which  they  burned  one  hour.  These 
on  returning  to  Chamonix,  they  weighed,  and,  after  burn- 
ing there  another  hour,  weighed  again.  The  loss  of  weight 
in  each  instance  was  the  same.  This  was  a  surprise,  since 
the  light  of  the  candles  was  much  feebler  on  the  moun- 
tain than  in  the  valley.  The  sound  of  a  pistol  was  found 
to  be  short,  like  the  pop  of  a  champagne  cork.  On  this 
occasion,  posts  were  planted  in  the  snow  at  several  sta- 
tions, one  of  which  was  the  summit.  To  these,  register- 
ing thermometers  were  attached,  for  the  purpose  of  mark- 
ing the  extremes  of  temperature  during  the  year.  Others 
were  planted  in  the  snow.  In  1860  Professor  Tyndall 
made  efforts  to  ascend  to  the  summit  to  examine  his  ther- 
mometers, but  was  repelled  by  the  "  execrable  weather." 
In  1861  he  succeeded.  The  post  I'emained  on  the  sum- 
mit, but  the  thermometers  were  broken.*  He  states,  how- 
ever, that  a  thermometer  left  at  the  summit  of  the  Jar- 
din  during  the  winter  of  1858  recorded  a  minimum  tem- 
perature of  eight  degrees  below  zero. 

Life  is  not  wholly  extinct  in  these  glacial  solitudes. 
On  the  most  elevated  rocks,  but  a  few  hundred  feet  be- 
neath the  summit,  are  found  certain  species  of  mosses  and 
lichens,  and  even  microscopic  animals.  There  is  also  an 
insect  which  makes  its  home  upon  the  glaciers,  and  hides 
in  the  crevices  and  pores  which  permeate  their  mass. 

I  must  not  leave  Mont  Blanc  without  giving  briefly 
the  story  of  Balmat.  De  Saussure  had  awakened  among 
the  cantoniers  of  Chamonix  a  lively  interest  in  the  dis- 
covery of  a  route  to  Mont  Blanc.  He  had  offered  a  re- 
ward to  the  first  who  should  succeed.  Jacques  Balmat 
entered  into  a  lively  sympathy  with  the  aspirations  of 

*  Tvndall,  Hours  of  Exercise  in  the  Alps,  p  58. 


92  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

the  Genevese  scientist.  "  The  project,"  says  he,  as  reported 
by  Alexander  Dumas,  "  was  always  in  my  head, —  by  night 
as  well  as  by  day.  By  day  I  ascended  the  Br6vent  and 
spent  hours  in  searching  for  a  route.  By  night  I  could 
scarcely  close  my  eyes  before  I  dreamed  that  I  was  on  the 
way."  One  day  he  told  his  wife  he  was  going  to  search 
for  crystals.  He  took  a  baton  doubly  ironed,  and  longer 
and  stronger  than  usual,  put  a  bit  of  bread  in  his  pocket, 
and  set  out.  He  had  tried  the  route  by  the  Mer  de  Glace, 
but  the  terrible  Mont  Maudit  barred  the  passage.  He 
had  gone  by  the  Aiguille  de  Gouter,  but  the  crest  which 
connects  it  with  the  Dome  du  Gouter  was  found  only  one 
or  two  feet  wide,  and  the  precipices  on  either  hand  were 
1,800  feet  deep.  "Merci!"  He  determined,  thei'efore,  to 
pursue,  this  time,  another  course.  He  went  by  the  Gla- 
cier des  Bossons  as  far  as  the  Grands  Mulcts.  Night 
overtook  him,  and  he  wrapped  himself  in  his  blanket  and 
sought  repose  upon  the  rocks.  "  Toward  nine  o'clock," 
says  he,  "  I  saw  approaching  the  shadow  which  mounted 
the  valley  like  a  thick  fog,  and  advanced  slowly  toward 
me.  At  half-past  nine  it  reached  me.  Meanwhile  I  saw 
above  me  the  last  rays  of  the  setting  sun.  They  disap- 
peared, and  the  day  was  gone.  Turned,  as  I  was,  toward 
Chamonix,  on  my  left  was  the  immense  plain  of  snow 
which  mounted  to  the  Dome  du  Gouter;  on  my  right, 
within  reach  of  my  hand,  a  precipice  of  800  feet  descent. 
I  was  unwilling  to  sleep,  through  fear  of  rolling  off  my 
bed  while  dreaming.  I  seated  myself  on  my  sack  and 
commenced  beating  hands  and  feet  to  restore  warmth. 

"  Soon  the  moon  rose  pale  in  a  circle  of  clouds.  At 
eleven  o'clock  I  saw,  descending  from  the  Aiguille  du 
Gouter,  a  rascally  fog  *  *  *  Every  minute  I  heard 


ASCENT   OF   MONT    BLANC.  93 

the  fall  of  avalanches  rumbling  like  the  sound  of  thun- 
der. The  glaciers  cracked,  and  at  each  crack  (craque- 
ment)  I  felt  the  mountain  move.  I  was  neither  hungry 
nor  thirsty,  and  I  experienced  a  singular  pain  in  the  head, 
which  began  at  the  top  of  the  cranium  and  descended  to 
the  eye-brows.  The  fog  was  still  floating  around  me.  My 
breath  froze  upon  the  handkerchief  which  I  had  tied  about 
my  face.  The  snow  wet  my  clothes;  it  seemed  to  me  that 
I  was  naked.  I  redoubled  the  rapidity  of  my  movements 
and  set  myself  to  singing,  to  chase  away  the  horrid  thoughts 
which  came  into  my  mind.  My  voice  lost  itself  in  the 
snow;  no  echo  made  response  to  me." 

Thus  he  passed  the  uneasy  night.  Day  dawned  at  two 
o'clock.  Sunrise  brought  premonitions  of  storm.  Bal- 
mat  must  not  attempt  Mont  Blanc.  He  spent  the  day  in 
exploring  the  glacier,  and  slept  the  next  night  upon  the 
solid  land.  On  the  third  day  he  descended  to  the  first  vil- 
lage, and  met  some  fellow  cantoniers,  who  persuaded  him 
to  join  in  an  expedition  in  search  of  a  path  to  the  summit. 
He  was  entirely  reticent  about  his  own  undertakings.  He 
went  home  and  put  on  a  change  of  clothing,  replenished 
his  sack,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night  joined  his  compan- 
ions on  a  journey  to  the  unapproachable  dome.  They 
reached  the  Dome  du  Gouter.  It  was  the  fourth  day  of 
Balrnat's  efforts.  He  started  in  advance  to  cross  the  crest 
which  connects  with  Mont  Blanc.  It  was  so  narrow  that 
he  mounted  it  astride.  Success  seemed  about  to  crown 
his  gigantic  endeavors,  but  alas!  the  crest  itself  was  cut 
by  crevasses,  and  he  was  obliged  to  retreat. 

His  companions  had  abandoned  him  in  despair.  He 
took  his  sack  and  descended  to  the  Grand  Plateau.  He 
was  piqued  at  the  treatment  of  his  comrades.  He  re- 


94  SPARKS   FKOM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMEE. 

solved  on  desperate  adventures.  He  climbed  the  terrible 
slope  to  the  Corridor  and  passed  over  to  the  Glacier  de 
Brenva.  He  looked  down  on  Courmayer  and  the  valley 
of  Aosta  in  Piedmont.  He  looked  toward  Mont  Blanc 
and  thought  he  saw  a  way  to  ascend,  but  would  not,  be- 
cause bis  companions  would  not  be  witnesses.  It  was 
night,  and  he  stood  in  a  wilderness  of  snows  and  frosts 
and  storms.  He  descended ;  he  encountered  the  Grand 
Crevasse.  Darkness  enveloped  him,  and  he  found  no  way 
to  cross.  Nothing  but  the  dire  and  untried  alternative 
of  a  night  upon  the  ice  was  before  him.  Alpine  snow 
shot  through  the  air  like  needles.  It  was  a  fearful  fate, 
but  Balmat's  heart  never  felt  fear, —  nor  despondency. 
We  must  imagine  how  the  night  was  passed.  He  looked 
down  on  the  lights  of  Chamonix  and  thought  of  his  com- 
panions in  their  warm  beds.  He  wondered  if  they  would 
think  of  him.  The  "craquement"  of  the  glaciers  sounded 
from  minute  to  minute.  In  the  intervals  of  silence  he 
heard  the  barking  of  a  dog  at  Courmayer.  "  That,"  he 
said,  "diverted  me;  it  was  the  only  sound  from  the  earth 
which  reached  me.  Toward  midnight  the  evil  cur  was 
silent,  and  I  fell  again  into  that  devil  of  stillness  which 
one  experiences  in  cemeteries;  for  I  took  no  account  of  the 
noise  of  the  glaciers  and  avalanches  which  startled  me. 
At  two  o'clock  I  saw  appear  in  the  horizon  the  same  line 
of  light  as  on  the  two  previous  nights.  The  sun  fol- 
lowed as  befoi-e.  Mont  Blanc  also  donned  his  perruque; 
he  does  this  when  in  bad  humor,  and  then  there's  no  use 
meddling  with  him.  I  was  acquainted  with  his  character, 
and  I  determined  to  leave  him  undisturbed.  '  When  he 
smokes  his  pipe,'  as  they  say  in  the  valley,  '  there's  no 
use  trying  to  extinguish  it,'" 


ASCENT   OF    MONT    BLANC.  95 

It  was  the  fifth  day  with  Balmat  on  the  mountains. 
He  had  noticed  the  steep  ascent  to  the  summit  of  the 
Rochers  Rouges.  He  ascended  it ;  he  looked  toward  the 
dome  of  Mont  Blanc, —  and  had  discovered  the  long-sought 
way  of  approach.  He  returned  to  Chamonix  and  slept 
forty-eight  hours. 

It  was  two  weeks,  however,  before  the  weather  favored 
the  final  undertaking.  He  had  confided  his  secret  to  Dr. 
Paccard,  who  had  consented  to  accompany  him  in  the  next 
ascent.  They  left  Charaonix  by  stealth.  None  but  three 
women  knew  of  their  plans.  They  were  to  watch  for 
the  adventurers  on  the  dome  at  a  certain  hour  on  the 
following  day.  They  slept  the  first  night  on  the  borders 
of  the  Glacier  des  Bossons.  The  next  day  Dr.  Paccard 
was  overcome  by  the  fatigue  and  somnolence  which  ac- 
company mountain  climbing.  He  reached  the  Corridor, 
and  a  gust  of  wind  blew  his  hat  over  the  crest  toward 
Piedmont.  At  the  foot  of  the  Calotte,  or  cap  of  Mont 
Blanc,  he  refused  to  advance.  Balmat  pushed  forward 
alone, —  iron- hearted, —  iron-framed.  The  pelting  snow 
caused  him  to  keep  his  head  bowed  down  for  protection 
of  his  face.  He  noticed  a  change  in  the  nature  of  the 
surface.  "  I  raised  my  head,"  he  says,  "  and  perceived 
that  I  had  conquered  at  last  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc. 
Then  I  turned  my  eyes  around  me,  trembling  lest  I  were 
deceived  and  should  discover  some  new  pinnacle,  for  I 
felt  that  I  had  not  the  strength  to  climb  it.  The  joints 
of  my  limbs  seemed  to  hold  together  only  by  the  aid  of 
my  pantaloons.  But  no  ;  I  was  at  the  end  of  so  many 
explorative  and  fruitless  marches.  I  had  arrived  where 
no  person  had  yet  been, —  not  even  the  eagle  or  the 
chamois  —  alone, —  without  other  reliance  than  that  of  my 


96  SPARKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

strength  and  my  will.  All  which  surrounded  me  seemed 
to  be  mine." 

He  turned  toward  Chamonix  and  waved  his  hat  in  the 
air.  All  the  village  had  assembled  to  witness  a  human 
being  on  the  summit  of  that  white  and  eternally  solitary 
dome.  All  the  village!  They  had  confided  their  secret 
only  to  three  women! 

We  leave  Balmat  to  get  himself  and  his  half-dead  doc- 
tor back  to  Chamonix  as  best  he  may.  The  doctor  was 
blind,  and  Balraat  was  equally  so  on  the  following  day. 
At  the  end  of  four  days  he  went  to  Geneva  to  notify  De 
Saussure  of  his  success;  but  he  tells  us  curtly,  "  The  En- 
glish had  got  the  start  of  me.''  Brave  Balmat! — "Bal- 
mat of  Mont  Blanc,"  as  the  King  of  Sardinia  titled  him. 
He  sleeps  at  length  in  a  crevasse.  Fifty  years  afterward, 
at  the  age  of  72,  he  fell  from  a  shelf  of  rock  into  the 
depths  of  a  fissure,  from  which  his  body  was  never  recov- 
ered,—  a  grandiose  and  fitting  sepulcher  for  the  first  in- 
vader of  the  drear  solitudes  of  Alpine  snows  and  ice.  "  The 
ancients  would  have  imagined  that  this  conqueror  of  the 
mountains  had  disappeared  in  an  apotheosis." 

Balmat's  success  was  in  1786.  De  Saussure  was  unable 
to  effect  his  long-desired  ascent  till  1787.  Six  days  later 
he  was  followed  by  an  Englishman,  Col.  Bagley.  The  only 
ascent  in  1788  was  by  another  Englishman,  Mr.  Woldley. 
No  more  ascensions  occurred  till  1802.  From  that  year 
to  1853  there  were,  in  all,  but  63  ascensions.  In  I860 
there  was  but  one  reported,  though  in  1861  there  were  39. 

In  1869  we  have  a  record  of  54;  in  1870, —  the  year 
of  the  Franco-German  war, — 14.  The  maximum  number 
has  been  58,  in  1873.  In  1874  there  were  41. 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  97 

The  nationalities  of  the  ascensionists  are  noteworthy. 
From  1819  to  1834  they  were  all  English,  except  two 
Americans.  From  1847  to  1858,  inclusive,  all  were  En- 
glish and  Americans,  except  eight.  The  total  number  of 
English  ascensionists  has  been  457;  of  Americans,  82. 
The  French  have  had  75  representatives;  Savoy  and 
Switzerland,  42.  The  total  number  of  ascensions  has  been 
775.  Of  every  nine  ascensionists,  five  have  been  English 
and  one  American.  English-speaking  people  have  consti- 
tuted two-thirds  of  the  whole.  The  total  number  of  lady 
ascensionists  has  been  30;  of  whom  4  ascended  in  1874. 
One  was  a  Spanish  lady,  who  only  succeeded  on  the  third 
attempt.  Chamonix  gave  her  an  ovation  for  her  bravery. 
The  first  lady  ascensionist  was  Mademoiselle  Paradis,  of 
Chamonix,  in  1809;  the  second,  Mademoiselle  H.  d'Ange- 
ville,  of  France,  in  1838.  The  third  was  an  English  lady, 
Mrs.  T.  Hamilton.  The  first  American  lady  to  make  the 
ascent  was  Miss  Brevoort,  of  New  York,  in  1865.  The 
first  Americans  were  Howard  and  Rensselaer,  in  1819. 
There  have  been  six  fatal  accidents  attending  ascensions 
from  Chamonix.  Six  tourists  have  been  lost,  including 
one  lady, —  only  one  in  129  persons.  No  accidents  have 
occurred  on  the  Chamonix  side  since  1870.  In  1874, 
however,  there  occurred  a  catastrophe  on  the  Courmayer 
side,  in  an  attempt  to  ascend  by  the  Glacier  de  Miage. 
Night  overtook  the  party  while  in  the  upper  region  of 
the  glacier.  They  were  compelled  to  keep  in  motion 
to  avoid  being  frozen.  They  proceeded  with  caution, 
cutting  steps  in  the  ice;  but  the  voyageur  missed  his 
footing,  slipped,  and  drew  with  him  his  two  guides  into 
a  profound  crevasse.  One  guide  only  escaped,  and  the 


98  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

unfortunate  tourist  now  rests  in   peace   in   the   cemetery 
at  Courmayer.* 

These  narratives  and  statistics  illustrate  a  gi-and  fact 
in  the  experience  of  mankind.  It  is  further  illustrated  in 
the  connection  of  mountains  with  epochal  events  in  the 
world's  history.  Ararat,  Sinai,  Horeb,  Calvary,  Atlas,  Ida, 
Pindus,  Olympus,  Parnassus;  these  are  names  with  which 
the  profoundest  history  of  our  race  is  inseparably  con- 
nected. There  is  more  in  mountains  than  the  novelty 
of  the  outlook  from  their  summits.  They  stir  the  higher 
susceptibilities  of  the  intellect  by  their  magnitude,  their 
loftiness,  their  grandeur,  the  unapproachableness  of  their 
summits, — their  symbolism  of  power  and  eternity.  No 
man  can  contemplate  the  aspects  presented  by  a  nobly  up- 
lifted mountain  pinnacle  or  dome  without  feeling  that  his 
thought  is  expanded,  unchained  and  newly-gifted;  and 
that  a  new  birth  has  been  given  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
sublime  within  him.  There  is  more  than  this  in  the  in- 
fluence of  mountains.  They  elicit  and  exercise  the  morale 
of  the  soul.  "  High  mountains  are  a  feeling."  The 
dweller  among  mountains  has  always  been  free  —  he  must 
be  free.  He  in  whose  soul  have  been  knit  the  impres- 
sions of  wide  extended  landscapes  and  noble  mountains 
is  himself  a  scion  of  nobility.  Mountains  fire  the  soul 
with  a  spirit  of  veneration.  They  are  the  symbols  of  in- 
finite power;  they  command  our  worship;  whether  we 
reason  or  not,  they  force  us  to  bow  the  spirit  in  their 
presence.  They  are  the  homes  of  frost,  and  silence,  and 
mystery, —  the  brows  which  bear  the  wreath  of  the  clouds, 
— the  eyries  of  the  lightning  and  the  thunder, —  the  pal- 

*  These  facts,  with  others  in  reference  to  1874,  have  been  kindly  communi- 
cated to  me  by  M.  Payot,  of  Chamouix,  since  my  return  to  America. 


ASCENT  OF  MONT  BLANC.  99 

aces  of  infinite  power  and  majesty.  They  restrain  us 
from  their  presence  like  august  monarchs.  They  reach 
up  to  heaven  arid  reflect  a  celestial  radiance  down  to  us, 
while  we,  in  our  weakness,  must  remain  below. 

"Net  vainly  did  the  early  Persian  make 

His  altar  (he  high  places,  and  the  peak 
Of  earth-o'ergazing  mountains,  and  thus  take 

A  fit  and  unwalled  temple,  there  to  seek 

The  spirit  in  whose  honor  shrines  are  weak, 
Upreared  by  human  hands.     Come  and  compare 

Columns  and  idol-dwellings,  Goth  or  Greek, 
With  Nature's  realms  of  worship,  earth  and  air; 
Nor  fix  on  fond  abodes  to  circumscribe  thy  prayer." 


THE  BEAUTIFUL/ 


WHATSOEVER  is  true  is  beautiful;  whatsoever  is 
good  is  beautiful;  whatsoever  is  beautiful  is  both 
true  and  good.  The  world  is  delightful  because  it  is  beau- 
tiful,—  not  because  it  yields  us  food  and  raiment,  warmth 
and  ease.  Science  and  philosophy  delight  us,  not  be- 
cause they  afford  us  knowledge,  but  because  the  true  in 
the  world  external  to  the  soul  attunes  so  beautiful  a  har- 
mony with  the  soul  itself.  The  truths  of  science  and 
philosophy  we  apprehend  and  utilize;  it  is  the  beauty  and 
sublimity  of  the  truth  which  we  enjoy.  The  sight  of 
spotless  virtue,  or  of  a  great  and  noble  deed,  sends  through 
the  heart  a  thrill  of  pleasure;  but  not  because  some  bene- 
fit comes  to  the  world;  it  is  because  there  is  something 
in  the  human  soul  which  stirs  in  sweet  response  to  a 
thing  which  is  sweetly  and  grandly  good. 

How  large  a  volume  of  pure  enjoyment  is  conferred 
upon  man  in  the  existence  of  the  beautiful!  The  beauti- 
ful seems  created  for  no  other  purpose  than  the  enhance- 
ment of  the  happiness  of  sentient  beings.  Blot  out  of 
existence  all  which  appeals  simply  to  the  aesthetic  sense, 
and  we  should  still  live,  and  eat,  and  think,  and  wor- 
ship,—  but  how  would  the  rewards  of  thought  and  wor- 
ship shrink  in  our  esteem !  Erase  from  the  soul  the  power 
to  discern  the  beautiful,  and  the  1'esult  would  be  the  same. 

*  A  commencement  address  before  the  State  Female  College,  Memphis,  Tenn. 
100 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  101 

The  sky, —  blue,  serene,  immaculate, —  would  no  longer 
awaken  an  emotion.  The  distant  star  would  send  its  an- 
cient light  to  eyes  leaden  as  those  of  the  hound  upon  the 
porch.  The  exquisite  colorings  of  violet  and  rose;  the 
universal  bloom  of  spring;  the  fire  in  the  sunset  cloud; 
the  spirit  hum  of  the  breezy  forest;  the  many-voiced 
chorus  of  morning  birds;  the  dark  green  depths  of  the 
ocean,  brooding  over  the  wrecked  argosies  of  a  human 
race, —  these  all  would  be  mere  plain  facts  to  apprehend, 
not  inspirations  on  which  to  soar.  The  cloud  might  water 
the  scorching  crop  without  diffusing  a  radiance  of  super- 
nal light  from  its  brow,  or  hanging  the  love-tinted  bow 
upon  its  bosom.  The  hill-side  stream  might  convey  its 
comfort  to  the  thirsty  beast  without  making  all  the  air 
vocal  with  a  music  which  causes  the  human  heart  to  leap 
for  joy.  Man  would  be  able  to  subsist  without  pansies,  and 
mocking-birds,  and  rainbows,  and  stars.  If  every  object 
were  brown  and  square  to  the  visual  sense,  if  every  taste 
were  bitter  as  aloes,  and  every  sound  the  grating  of  a 
file,  and  every  fragrance  the  fetor  of  putrescence,  man 
would  still  be  able  to  live;  family  relations  might  sub- 
sist; science  might  not  become  extinct,  and  religion  might 
linger  as  a  sapless  tree  in  a  rainless  clime. 

But  such  a  world  is  not  ours.  Such  a  world  does  not 
exist.  God  loves  beauty,  and  because  he  loves  it  he  has 
made  everything  beautiful,  and  because  we  are  like  God 
we  love  the  beautiful,  and  participate  in  the  happiness  of 
God. 

The  beauty  which  fills  the  world  is  as  abundant  and 
as  free  as  the  sunlight, —  nay,  sunlight  and  starlight  in 
all  their  infinite  wanderings  are  the  very  vehicles  of 
beauty  to  every  world  and  to  every  intelligence.  There 


102  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

is  no  monopoly  of  the  world's  beauty, —  no  preemption, — 
no  petty  sovereignty  to  curtail  the  absolute  rights  of  every 
intelligence  to  enjoy  it.  You  cannot  destroy  it,  you  can- 
not conceal  it.  Even  destruction  and  death  put  on  hues 
of  beauty,  and  stir  our  souls  with  exquisite  emotions. 
There  is  none  so  poor  that  he  is  not  a  proprietor  of 
the  world's  beauty;  none  so  unlearned  that  he  does  not 
understand  and  discern  and  enjoy  the  beautiful.  The 
beauty  which  blesses  life  does  not  depart  when  sun- 
light retires  behind  the  mountain,  and  leaves  the  voice- 
less stars  glinting  down,  like  Raphael's  cherubs  from  the 
casements  of  heaven;  nor  when  the  blazing  sun  arouses 
us  to  the  labors  and  cares  of  real  life,  with  the  sights 
and  sounds  of  the  landscape  to  cheer  us,  or  the  tender 
evidences  of  some  beautiful  love  to  kindle  a  heaven  in 
our  hearts.  Not  when  our  eyes  are  closed,  —  even  with 
the  seal  of  blindness, —  can  we  be  robbed  of  all  the  beauty 
of  the  world,  for  love,  which  so  often  enters  through  the 
eyes,  will  find  some  other  avenue  to  our  souls;  and  the 
mind's  eye  will  not  be  blind,  but  will  contemplate  the 
serene  beauty  of  truth;  and  the  eye  of  religious  faith  will 
even  grow  clearer,  and  the  strings  of  the  soul  will  become 
more  perfectly  attuned  to  the  influences  of  heaven,  and 
the  whole  nature  will  be  pervaded  by  a  harmony  which 
is  both  music  and  light.  Nay,  when  we  pass  from  the 
light  of  the  heaven  of  stars,  do  we  not  enter  the  light 
of  the  serener  heaven  of  blessed  spirits? 

The  world  has  been  made  beautiful  to  make  man 
happy,  and  art  is  the  translation  of  the  world's  beauty 
to  man's  intelligence.  The  soul,  with  its  wonderful  play 
of  faculties  and  its  consummate  system  of  interactions 
with  the  material  world,  has  been  made  beautiful,  to  at- 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  103 

tract  us  to  the  study  of  it  and  affiliate  us  to  our  heavenly 
Father.  Virtue  has  been  made  beautiful  because  we  pos- 
sess a  capacity  of  admiring  and  seeking  virtue,  and  we 
have  been  gifted  with  this  capacity  to  stimulate  us  to 
the  encouragement  and  the  practice  of  virtue.  The 
genial  light  of  love  irradiates  our  households,  not  to  lure 
us  to  the  service  of  the  individual  or  the  race,  but  to 
make  such  service  tributary  to  our  happiness. 

Shall  we  not  attempt  to  secure  some  glimpse  of  the  na- 
ture of  beauty, —  the  sources  of  beauty,  and  the  faculties 
by  which  we  apprehend  the  beautiful?  Far  from  us  be 
the  phrases  of  metaphysics  and  the  subtleties  of  the  schools. 
I  think  the  nature  of  esthetic  perception  is  exposed  to 
common  sense.  There  are  ideas  of  reason, —  thoughts, 
ideals,  models  of  the  beautiful  uncreated, —  ideas  of  order, 
harmony,  fitness,  symmetry,  unity  of  plan.  We  cannot 
define  them  or  describe  them.  The  more  we  attempt  to 
bring  them  forward  into  consciousness,  the  more  fugitive 
they  seem;  but  we  know  such  ideas,  principles,  rules  or 
standards  are  there, —  in  reason.  Then  the  forms  or  re- 
lations of  things,  or  attributes  of  characters  or  lives,  come 
to  our  knowledge, —  this  is  an  exercise  of  the  understand- 
ing. Next,  judgment  compares  these  cognitions  of  the 
understanding  with  the  imperishable  ideals  in  the  reason, 
and  pronounces  an  agreement  or  disagreement  of  the  ob- 
jects with  those  standards  or  criteria  of  the  beautiful. 
Lastly,  if  the  judgment  affirms  a  conformity  of  the  ob- 
ject with  the  standard  of  beauty,  a  peculiar  sensibility  is 
awakened,  which  gives  us  pleasure  ;  if  it  is  a  disagree- 
ment affirmed,  the  sensibility  is  painful.  This  sensibility 
is  the  (esthetic  feeling,  and  this  is  the  only  thing  in  the 
complete  process  of  aesthetic  perception  which  is  peculiar. 


104  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

The  beautiful  thing  is  cognized  in  the  same  way  as  a 
mathematical  figure  is  cognized.  It  is  compared  with  a 
primary  datum  of  reason  by  the  same  faculty  as  makes 
comparisons  in  other  cases,  and  the  rational  element  is 
simply  one  of  the  body  of  regulative  principles  which 
tacitly,  and  with  most  persons,  unconsciously,  control  all 
thinking.  The  feeling  only  is  peculiar.  This,  however,  is 
immutably  distinct  from  every  other  power  of  the  soul, 
and  proclaims  a  purpose  of  the  Creator  to  correlate  man 
with  the  beautiful  with  which  he  has  garnished  the  world 
of  forms,  the  world  of  thoughts,  and  the  world  of  feelings. 

Let  this  suffice  for  a  search  after  the  faculty  by  which 
we  seize  hold  of  these  glorious  gifts  of  God.  Let  us  see 
if  we  can  ascertain  what  the  beautiful  is.  If  we  are  un- 
able to  define  it,  we  may  certainly  discover  whei'e  it  re- 
sides, and  how  varied  are  the  circumstances  under  which 
the  beautiful  unveils  its  face. 

High  authorities  have  ranged  the  appropriate  themes 
of  philosophical  research  under  the  three  categories  of 
"The  True,  the  Beautiful  and  the  Good."  These,  it  is 
thought,  cover  the  whole  ground.  There  is  reason  in 
such  an  analysis;  but  I,  who  am  not  a  philosopher,  shall 
venture  to  deny  that  anything  can  exist  which  is  beauti- 
ful only.  The  very  conception  of  the  beautiful  is  insepa- 
rably coupled  with  the  conception  of  the  good.  You  feel 
it  absurd  to  affirm  the  possibility  of  a  beautiful  thing 
which  does  not  confer  a  happiness. 

"A  thing  of  beauty  is  a  joy  forever." 

So  of  the  true.  Contemplate  it  as  a  thought  to  which 
some  reality  corresponds.  Here  is  a  harmony  between 
the  ideal  and  the  actual  which,  like  all  harmony,  awakens 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  105 

an  emotion  of  pleasure.  It  is  beautiful.  The  true  is 
beautiful. 

Think  of  the  spotlessness  of  infancy.  It  is  a  character 
perfectly  coordinated  with  our  idea  of  innocence.  We 
apprehend  the  beaut/  of  the  moral  harmony  and  experi- 
ence delight.  The  good  is  beautiful. 

Think  of  anything  beautiful, —  a  beautiful  statue.  Be- 
ing beautiful,  it  conforms  to  the  standard  of  beauty  exist- 
ing in  the  reason;  it  is  therefore  true.  The  beautiful  is 
true.  In  being  beautiful  it  awakens  delightful  emotions 
and  confers  happiness.  It  is  so  far  good.  But  that  true 
beauty  which  inculcates  by  example,  fidelity  to  a  divine 
idea  established  in  reason,  is  a  moral  influence.  The 
beautiful  is  morally  good. 

It  is  impossible,  then,  to  contemplate  the  beautiful 
abstracted  from  the  true  and  the  good.  Everything  or- 
dained to  exist  discloses  the  beautiful  in  ever-varying 
guise.  We  must  range  through  the  universe  and  note 
where  this  spirit  from  heaven  has  made  her  dwelling- 


First,  there  is  PHYSICAL  BEAUTY, —  the  beautiful  in  visi- 
ble things.  Nature  is  beautiful.  In  every  realm  and  in 
every  element,  the  aesthetic  senso  is  feasted  on  a  luxuri- 
ance of  forms,  and  colors,  and  relations,  in  which  beauty 
is  superadded  to  provisions  which  seem  to  occupy  the  pri- 
mary place.  We  find  nothing  which  is  useful  alone;  or- 
nament, grace,  coloring,  finish,  are  lavished  everywhere. 
The  variety  in  nature's  beauty  is  not  less  striking  than 
its  universality.  It  amazes  us  with  its  vastness;  it  con- 
founds us  with  its  minuteness.  It  is  the  beauty  of  su- 
pernal and  infinitely  blended  colors;  the  serene  majesty 
of  uplifted  mountains,  carrying  thought  to  the  very  heaven 


106  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

with  their  pinnacled  summits,  and  to  the  very  heart  of 
the  earth  with  their  deep-rooted  bases.  Nature's  beauty 
is  as  exquisite  as  it  is  universal  and  varied.  The  complete- 
ness of  nature's  attempts  at  beauty  is  consummate.  Here 
are  no  signs  of  limitation  of  skill,  or  taste,  or  power. 
Scan  the  finest  work  of  a  human  artisan,  and  beyond  a 
certain  limit  you  detect  its  imperfections.  You  gauge 
and  measure  the  possibilities  of  his  skill.  But  subject 
the  workmanship  of  nature  to  a  similar  scrutiny,  and  you 
discern  an  astonishing  contrast  in  the  perfection  of  de- 
tails. Every  minutest  line  and  feature  is  as  exquisitely 
executed  as  the  principal  ones.  Apply  the  microscope, 
and  penetrate  deeply  the  infinitesimal  parts;  to  the  ut- 
most limit  of  your  scrutiny,  the  same  perfection  of  finish 
continues;  and  when  you  desist  from  the  search  for  a 
measure  of  nature's  skill,  you  leave  your  task  convinced 
that  the  same  careful  and  beautiful  workmanship  contin- 
ues on  and  on,  down  through  the  ranks  of  the  infinitesi- 
mals, beyond  the  power  even  of  reason  or  imagination  to 
penetrate. 

Lift  up  your  eyes  on  one  of  nature's  landscapes.  We 
transport  ourselves  in  thought  to  Switzerland, —  the  land 
of  lakes  and  glaciers  and  needled  mountain  heights.* 
We  seat  ourselves  upon  a  shaven  lawn.  Behind  us,  in  re- 
treating order,  are  flower-plots,  and  trained  shrubbery,  and 
proudly  ancient  oaks;  and  from  the  midst  of  the  verdure 
rises  dazzlingly  the  balconied  and  majestic  chateau  of  a 
Rothschild, —  a  banker  king.  In  front  of  us  is  a  panorama 
such  as  no  eye  can  rest  upon  without  a  regeneration  of 
heart.  The  grassy  turf  descends  till  it  loses  itself  in  the 
dark  forest,  on  whose  tufted  summits  we  look, —  over  whose 

*  See  the  illustrations  to  the  two  preceding  chapters. 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  107 

summits  we  look, —  to  the  lake  of  Geneva,  with  waters  as 
blue  as  the  sky  which  bends  over  it,  and  as  serene.  Far 
along,  to  right  and  left,  this  obverse  of  the  summer  sky 
sends  up  its  celestial  sheen,  and  we  seem  almost  to  place 
our  feet  upon  the  floor  of  heaven.  Beyond  is  the  shining, 
grass-bordered  shore,  in  the  rear  of  which  the  rounded 
forms  of  a  young  forest  uprise  in  expanding  succession,  till 
the  plain  is  all  a-bubble  with  emerald  swells.  Toward  the 
left,  the  dark,  straight  back  of  the  neighboring  Voirons 
rises  up  to  bound  the  plain,  and  project  a  line  along  the 
soft  expanse  of  the  sky.*  Toward  the  right  the  plain  is 
strewed  with  the  fields  and  villas  and  suburban  seats 
which  skirt  the  charming  city  that  crouches  behind  the 
forest  screen  erected  this  side  of  the  lake;  while  beyond 
the  suburban  landscape  rise  the  Great  and  Little  Saleve, 
whose  parallel  courses  of  mountain  masonry  may  be  sat- 
isfactorily studied  by  the  young  geologist  from  the  win- 
dow of  his  school-room  in  the  city.  But  directly  in  front 
are  the  chief  objects  of  the  picture.  The  Voirons  and 
the  Saleve  approach  each  other  in  the  distance.  Through 
the  interval  which  separates  them  the  green  and  dusky 
mountain-tops  emerge  in  succession  into  the  upper  air, 
and  the  massive  Mole  lifts  its  pyramidal  form  highest  of 
all  from  their  midst.  Beyond  the  dark-swelling  moun- 
tain-tops—  beyond  the  Mole  —  rises  the  stupendous  form 
of  Mont  Blanc, —  his  snow-wreathed  crown  and  glacier- 
mantled  shoulders  radiant  as  the  glory  of  heaven  in  the 
afternoon  sunlight.  *  *  *  From  grassy  bank  and 
mirror  lake  to  rock-ribbed  hills  and  Alpine  domes  glisten- 
ing in  the  splendor  of  eternal  snows,  what  an  array  of 
beauty  is  here!  What  a  range  of  beauty  is  here!  And 

*  See  Frontispiece. 


108  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

to  this  array  of  natural  beauty  is  added  the  associated 
interest  which  clusters  all  about  this  paradisiacal  valley 
and  lake.  Near  this  spot,  at  Ferney,  is  the  picturesque 
old  villa  of  Voltaire.  At  the  left  extremity  of  the  lake 
is  the  mediaeval  castle  of  Chillon,  redolent  of  historic  lore, 
and  preserving  still  the  footmarks  of  the  chained  prisoner, 
Bonnivard,  worn  in  his  dungeon's  stony  floor.  At  the 
right  extremity  of  the  lake  is  Geneva, —  the  city  of  Cal- 
vin, and  Servetus,  and  Eousseau;  and  directly  across  the 
lake  is  Deodati,  once  the  residence  of  Byron,  whose  stormy 
genius  wrestled  with  the  lightnings  which  leaped  from 
the  peaks  of  Jura  in  the  rear,  while  he  heard 

"  Jura  answer  from  her  misty  shroud 
Back  to  the  joyous  Alps,  who  call  to  her  aloud." 

Or,  let  us  ascend  the  cliffs  which  break  the  ocean 
surges  at  Nahant,  and  look  down  upon  the  towering  bil- 
lows as  they  roll  upon  the  shore  frothing  with  rage  and 
sending  up  a  continuous  roar  along  the  beach,  or  howl- 
ing in  the  windings  of  the  long  clefts  which  split  the 
beetling  escarpments  of  rock. 

Or,  let  us  ride  upon  a  ship  at  sea,  when  sunset  gleams 
illumine  the  summer  sky,  and  the  phosphorescent  fires 
mark  the  trail  of  the  vessel  till  it  blends  with  commingled 
sea  and  heaven.  The  brave  ship  rises  and  sinks  with  the 
dying  swell  of  yesterday's  storm,  and  steams  onward 
toward  her  port.  Thei'e  is  no  sound  in  heaven  or  earth, 
but  that  which  ascends  from  our  little  world.  The  infi- 
nite depths  of  space  are  populous  but  voiceless.  The  un- 
searchable depths  of  ocean  are  populous  also,  and  voice- 
less. There  disport  the  mute  monsters  whose  dominion 
has  never  yet  been  invaded  by  man.  There  swarm  the 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  109 

microscopic  inhabitants  whose  tiny  structures  are  as  studi- 
ously and  tastefully  elaborated  as  if  each  were  to  be  ex- 
hibited at  the  world's  millennial  exposition.  There  pass 
to  and  fro  the  unspoken  messages  which  weave  the  web 
that  binds  the  continents  in  amity.  *  *  *  But  let  the 
winds  arise  from  their  slumbers.  *  *  *  Midnight  drops 
her  murky  mantle  on  the  deck.  The  sea  rolls  and  heaves 
and  groans  in  an  agony.  Fierce  spirits  of  the  air  howl 
among  the  cordage,  and  flap  their  rain-soaked  pinions 
against  the  fluttering  shrouds.  The  good  ship  leaps  in 
air,  then  plunges  with  a  groan  beneath  the  curling,  angry 
lip  of  a  wave.  The  water  boards  the  deck,  and  again  re- 
treats from  the  well  battened  hatchways.  The  flashes  of 
an  angry  heaven  make  visible  the  tumult  of  sea  and  ship, 
and  the  threatening  thunders,  louder- voiced  than  the  ter- 
rific howl  of  the  waves,  descend  upon  the  terror  stricken 
inmates  of  the  cabin.  Terrible,  but  glorious,  is  the  storm 
at  sea.  The  man  who  remembers  a  storm  in  mid- Atlantic 
possesses  a  fortune  of  aeothetic  and  moral  influences. 

Such  beauty,  such  sublimity,  are  spread  over  land  and 
sea  to  awaken  the  aesthetic  sense  and  ensphere  us  in  a 
medium  of  inspiration  and  joy.  Happy  is  he  who  is  sen- 
sitive to  the  myriad  revelations  of  beauty  which  blos- 
som from  land  and  sea  and  sky.  Were  no  other  reward 
of  culture  attainable,  all  our  pains  would  be  compen- 
sated in  a  spirit  trained  to  interpret  nature  and  drink 
the  inspiration  of  her  beauty.  Hear  what  one  of  the  ac- 
knowledged ornaments  of  your  sex  is  reported  to  have 
said  of  the  beauty  of  the  world:  "To  me  it  seems  as  if, 
when  God  conceived  the  world,  that  was  poetry;  he  formed 
it,  and  that  was  sculpture;  he  varied  and  colored  it,  and 
that  was  painting;  and  then,  crowning  all,  he  peopled  it 


110  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGISTS   HAMMER. 

with  living  beings,  and  that  was  the  gi-and,  divine,  eter- 
nal drama."  * 

The  beauty  of  humanity  is  another  sort  of  physical 
beauty.  It  is  bathed,  however,  and  suffused  and  lighted, 
in  its  full  development,  by  beauty  of  soul.  There  is  no 
presence  which  mute  and  motionless  speaks  with  such 
subduing  power  as  the  human  mien.  In  its  different 
moods,  as  terrible  as  the  stormy  sea,  or  as  placid  as  the 
summer  lake,  or  fathomless  and  suggestive  as  the  blue 
depths  of  the  sky.  Here  is  my  dark-eyed  boy  in  his  fourth 
summer;  look  on  him  in  sleep;  in  outline  what  a  master- 
work  of  the  divine  artist;  but  within  the  gracefully  chis- 
eled form  is  all  the  mystery  and  the  beauty  of  life  warm- 
ing his  tinted  skin,  throbbing  visibly  through  all  his 
frame.  *  *  *  Now  his  lids  are  parted;  those  dark 
eyes  look  out  from  the  land  of  the  spirit — avenues  to  a 
mysterious  world  —  a  depth  too  deep  for  even  imagina- 
tion to  explore.  Oh,  who  has  not  gazed  into  those  deep, 
melting,  trustful  eyes  of  childhood,  and  tried  to  penetrate 
their  soft,  bewitching,  spiritual  haze?  There  is  a  light 
and  warmth  of  heaven  in  them  still,  and  I  feel  it,  and 
I  sigh  to  think  the  fire  of  heaven  is  destined  to  be  smoth- 
ered by  the  ashes  of  a  mortal  life.  I  could  worship  as 
well  as  love  the  boy,  for  I  feel  that  he  is  yet  a  divinity. 

I  know  not  whether  the  spiritual  is  so  inseparably 
blended  with  the  material  in  man  that  it  becomes  impos- 
sible to  contemplate  beauty  of  form  apart  from  the  beauty 
of  the  informing  spirit;  but  I  am  of  the  opinion  that 
the  perfect  human  figure  is  the  most  beautiful  blending 
and  interfusing  of  lines  of  beauty  which  nature  has  ever 
produced.  An  ascetic  theology  may  affect  to  despise  the 

*  Charlotte  Cushman. 


THE   BEAUTIFUL.  Ill 

body, —  may  even  learn  to  contemn  it  with  profane  and 
lamentable  sincerity,  but  it  is  the  workmanship  of  a  di- 
vine artist,  which  he  has  pronounced  suited  to  be  the 
casket  of  his  own  likeness.  I  would  not  dare  yield  to 
the  Greek  in  admiration  of  its  divine  beauty.  I  accept 
the  verdict  of  the  cultured  intelligence  of  all  the  ages. 
The  perfect  human  form  we  shall  never  cease  to  admire. 
The  beautiful  face  or  figure  sheds  a  gratuitous  joy  on  all 
beholders. 

The  instinct  to  seek  to  appear  beautiful  is  universal. 
Some  of  us  are  obliged  to  content  ourselves  with  ap- 
proaching the  beautiful  only  so  far  as  to  become  pleas- 
ing. None  need  fall  short  of  this.  But  whosoever  can 
become  beautiful  may  regard  himself  divinely  called  to  be 
beautiful.  Beauty  and  duty  chime  as  well  in  substance 
as  in  sound.  The  ambition  to  be  beautiful  is  not  only 
right, —  it  is  ennobling, —  it  is  obligatory.  But  beware 
of  counting  mere  personal  beauty  the  chief  end  of  life. 

The  prerogative  of  supreme  personal  beauty  belongs 
to  the  sex  which,  by  unanimous  impulse,  we  pronounce 
gentle.  I  have  beforehand  the  undivided  verdict  of  my 
own  sex  when  I  pronounce  a  beautiful  woman  the  most 
perfect  expression  of  the  ideal  of  physical  beauty.  Beauty 
of  person  spiritualized  by  a  quick  responsive  intelligence, 
beaming  and  sweet  with  a  transparent  benignity  of  soul, 
crowned  with  the  queenly  mien,  and  sceptered  with  the 
regal  gait  which  are  her  birthright,  makes  woman  the 
mightiest  moral  power  in  existence.  The  history  of  the 
world  is  my  voucher  for  the  statement. 

"The  power  o'  beauty  reigns  supreme 
O'er  all  the  sons  of  men." 

James  Hogg. 


112  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

The  most  exquisite  attempts  of  the  painter  have  not  re- 
produced her  tints  and  tones  and  shadows.  The  most 
ideal  efforts  of  the  sculptor  have  not  conferred  warmth 
and  softness  and  life  upon  the  cold  marble.  The  most 
divine  eloquence  has  not  portrayed  the  depth  of  feeling 
and  purpose  in  the  fathomless  spirit  of  her  eyes.  The 
most  angelic  muse  has  not  given  expression  to  the  native 
poetry  of  her  movements.  She  is  the  spirit  of  painting, 
and  sculpture,  and  eloquence,  and  poetry,  incarnate.  She 
is  the  arch-triumph  of  all  the  arts  in  a  single  achieve- 
ment. 

It  seems  to  me  that  such  a  creature  should  be  happy 
with  her  possessions  and  her  prerogatives. 

This  supreme  expression  of  beauty,  it  must  be  observed, 
is  not,  after  all,  the  product  of  purely  physical  qualities. 
This  highest  beauty  is  never  discovered  save  when  the 
reflex  of  a  cultured  soul  blends  in  the  features  of  the 
face.  Mere  physical  beauty  of  person  we  recognize  and 
admire,  but  supreme,  commanding  beauty  receives  its 
crown  and  halo  from  the  radiant  soul  within.  A  cul- 
tured mind  gives  charm  to  the  face,  and  a  gentle  and 
disciplined  and  benignant  heart  shines  winningly  through 
features  which  are  not  of  classic  mould. 

Hear  what  one  of  the  closest  of  modern  observers  of 
human  nature  writes  of  one  of  his  ideal  characters: 

"  There  is  a  beauty  too  spiritual  to  be  chained  in  a 
sti'ing  of  items  ;  and  Julia's  fair  features  were  but  the 
china  vessel  that  brimmed  over  with  the  higher  loveli- 
ness of  her  soul.  Her  essential  charm  was, —  what  shall 
we  say? — Transparence. 

"  You  would  have  said  her  very  body  thought." 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  113 

Modesty,  Intelligence,  and,  above  all,  Enthusiasm,  shone 
through  her  and  out  of  her,  and  made  her  an  airy,  fiery, 
household  joy.  Briefly,  an  incarnate  sunbeam."  * 

Beauty  of  person,  then,  is  something  which  may  be  cul- 
tivated. Hence  the  aspiration  to  be  beautiful  is  not  a 
vain  one  ;  were  it  so,  kind  nature  would  not  have  im- 
planted it  in  our  hearts.  I  do  not  speak  at  random  when 
I  affirm  that  women  with  cultured  minds  and  hearts 
excel  in  beauty  those  who  remain  ignorant  and  perverse. 
From  the  day  when  a  course  of  intellectual  and  spiritual 
training  begins,  you  may  detect  an  improvement  in  per- 
sonal attractions.  I  appeal  to  every  teacher  for  con- 
firmation. And  now  I  wish  to  say  more:  culture  confers 
not  alone  spiritual  beauty,  but  also  physical  beauty,  which 
in  turn  becomes  a  more  perfect  vehicle  for  the  beauty 
which  is  spiritual.  Mind  and  body  act  and  react.  The 
cultured  daughters  of  the  city  and  the  town  are  more 
comely  than  the  unlettered  drudges  of  the  alleys  and  of 
the  frontier.  This  condensed  lesson  I  would  have  pla- 
carded in  illuminated  letters  upon  the  wall  of  every  lady's 
boudoir:  As  you  would  be  beautiful,  be  intelligent,  be 
good. 

How  vain,  then,  are  rouges  and  dyes  and  other 
cosmetic  inventions!  Beauty  is  not  made  of  paint 
and  powder;  it  is  the  temple  which  health  builds  for  a 
pure,  bright  spirit;  or,  as  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
says,  "  Beauty  is  the  free  flower  of  health."  f  The 
tricks  of  misguided  vanity  cannot  be  passed  unnoticed. 
They  have  woven  a  thread  continuous  through  the  web 
of  feminine  history.  Hear  what  Aristophanes  catalogues 

*  Charles  Reade,  Hard  Cash,  Boston  ed.,  p.  6. 
Clemens  Alex.  Paed.,  Bk.  iii,  ch  xi. 


114  SPAKKS    FKOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

among    the    artifices    of    his    Greek    countrywomen    two 
thousand  years  ago: 

"  Snoods,  fillets,  natron  and  steel, 

Pumice-stone,  band,  back-band, 

Back-veil,  paint,  necklaces, 

Paints  for  the  eyes,  soft-garment,  hair-net, 

Girdle,  shawl,  fine  purple  border, 

Long-robe,  tunic,  Barathrum,  round  tunic, 

Ear-pendants,  jewelry,  ear-rings, 

Mallow-colored,  cluster-shaped  anklets, 

Buckles,  clasps,  necklets, 

Fetters,  seals,  chains,  rings,  powders, 

Bosses,  bands,  olisbi,  Sardian  stones, 

Fans,  helicters."  * 

We  have  no  such  catalogue  to  offer  as  suited  to  our 
own  times.  There  is  but  one  item  on  which  the  female 
mind  seems  generally  agreed  as  essential  to  the  adorn- 
ments of  the  present  day,  which  is  not  in  some  sense 
tolerable  to  the  fairly  balanced  masculine  judgment.  That 
one  thing,  I  am  pained  to  say,  strikes  more  fatally  at 
female  beauty  than  would  be  possible  for  all  the  "  snoods " 
and  "  fetters "  and  "  helicters  "  enumerated  by  Aristopha- 
nes. This  one  thing  is  "banged  hair," — a  style  to  be 
seen  in  perfection  among  Eskimos  and  Australians,  and 
one  which  contributes  materially  to  impart  to  the  women 
of  those  races  their  characteristic  expression  of  unmiti- 
gated idiocy, —  a  fashion  which  ought  to  disappear  from 
civilized  society  as  fast  as  nature  permits  the  hair  to  re- 
turn to  its  divinely  appointed  condition. 

Manly  beauty  is,  even  more  than  womanly,  a  reflex  of 
the  inner  adornment.  Homer,  speaking  of  the  true  origi- 
nal beauty  of  man  says, 

"At  first,  he  was  a  lion  with  ample  beard."  f 
*  Aristophanes,  Thesmophoriazomce.  t  Odyssey,  iv,  457. 


THE    BEAUTIFUL.  115 

Physically  he  seems  adapted  to  command  respect  rather 
than  admiration.  His  beauty  is  symbolical.  As  the  knit 
muscle  expresses  strength,  we  fear  it  as  a  foe,  or  trust  it 
as  a  friend.  The  strong  chest  expands  like  something 
safe  to  lean  upon.  The  capacious  front  is  the  natural 
symbol  of  god-like  wisdom  for  command  and  security. 
The  features  acquire  interest  as  they  become  interpreters 
of  the  calm  or  the  tumult,  the  tenderness  or  the  rage,  the 
joy  or  anguish,  which  reigns  within  the  temple.  The 
manly  models  of  Greek  sculpture  excite  our  admiration 
only  as  they  recall  the  beauty  of  heroism,  or  fidelity,  or 
patriotism,  or  some  other  noble  virtue.  The  Apollo  Bel- 
videre,  so  often  assumed  as  the  type  of  manly  beauty, 
has  neither  the  moral  symbolism,  the  proportions,  nor 
the  mien  of  the  manly  ideal.  What  beauty  the  statue 
possesses  is  feminine, —  a  good  Apollo,  but  not  a  man. 
The  stalwart  strength  and  intellectual  resolve  of  manly 
character  are  not  expressed.  In  the  famous  cartoons  of 
Raphael  we  have  the  opposite  extreme.  Muscle  is  de- 
veloped to  brutal  proportions.  The  rayless,  prehistoric 
countenances  above  such  extravagant  frames  are  the  most 
fitting  harmonies  which  I  have  been  able  to  discover, —  for 
instance,  in  the  "  Miraculous  Draught  of  Fishes.11  How 
much  truer  an  instinct  has  Raphael  disclosed  in  his  Sis- 
tine  Madonna. 

Age  has  its  own  beauty.  True  is  it,  indeed,  that  the 
beauty  of  old  age  is  also,  to  a  large  extent,  symbolical. 
It  is  a  picture  of  a  time  grown  venerable.  It  is  a 
symbol  of  experience  and  wisdom.  It  is  our  admoni- 
tion of  the  decay  and  silence  which  come  to  all  of  us. 
It  is  a  sunlight  gleam  from  another  world  through  a 
rift  in  the  clouds  which  obscure  our  mortal  vision.  But 


116  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

old  age  cannot  be  all  of  this  unless  it  follows  a  cultured 
and  virtuous  life.  The  old  age  of  the  ignorant  and  the 
hard- worked  degenerates  into  decrepitude,  and  wrinkles, 
and  imbecility.  A  peasant  woman  of  seventy  or  eighty 
years,  with  face  cross  hatched  with  wrinkles,  and  antique 
coif  drawn  down  over  her  time-blasted  brows,  with  no 
past  memories  worthy  to  rehearse,  and  no  present  inter- 
ests to  inspire  a  gleam  in  her  withered  eye,  and  lift  her 
bent  form  for  outlook  into  the  affairs  which  stir  the  world 
to-day,  is  not  an  object  of  beauty,  whatever  of  interest 
or  domestic  affection  may  hallow  her  presence.  But  what 
a  different  picture  is  presented  by  such  octogenarians  as 
Mary  Somerville,  Caroline  Herschel,  William  Cullen  Bry- 
ant, Peter  Cooper,  Victor  Hugo,  or  Guiseppe  Garibaldi. 
Ah,  it  is  intelligence  and  serenity,  and  urbanity,  the 
memory  of  life  improved,  the  expectation  of  heavenly 
welcome,  which  make  old  age  beautiful.  It  is  the  well- 
developed  brain  which  blossoms  as  a  century  plant  when 
the  light  of  another  world  begins  to  descend  upon  our 
heads. 

Still  other  forms  of  beauty  enter  our  souls  through 
the  senses, —  the  beauty  of  motion  and  the  beauty  of 
sounds.  Those  curves  which  agreeably  impress  the  aesthetic 
sense  impress  it  with  a  livelier  sentiment  when  they  be- 
come the  paths  of  moving  objects.  The  swaying  of  a 
willow  in  the  wind;  the  undulations  of  a  field  of  grain; 
the  circling  movements  of  the  quadrille  or  waltz;  the  ser- 
pentine course  of  a  rivulet  across  the  plain;  the  spray 
rising  from  a  waterfall;  the  course  of  a  ship  on  the 
water,  or  of  a  bird  in  the  air, —  these  are  familiar  ex- 
amples of  the  beauty  of  motion.  Music  is  the  beauti- 
ful addressed  to  another  sense.  The  occasion  does  not 


THE   BEAUTIFUL.  117 

permit  me  to  raise  the  question,  What  is  the  subjective 
nature  of  music?  Has  music  an  existence  independent 
of  sound?  Would  music  exist  if  there  were  no  precipi- 
ent  beings  to  receive  harmonious  vibrations?  I  ventui'e 
the  opinion  that  the  rhythm  of  music  is  one  element 
of  its  pleasing  effect;  and  then,  as  tone,  the  product  of 
synchronous  vibrations,  is  but  another  sort  of  rhythm, 
it  may  be  that  musical  rhythm  and  melody  and  harmony 
yield  us  aesthetic  gratification  for  the  ultimate  reason 
that  all  are  measured,  harmonious  impressions  upon  the 
sensorium,  like  the  equal  intervals  in  a  file  of  soldiers 
or  other  objects  regularly  repeated.  This  would  be  one 
step  toward  a  generalized  expression  of  the  nature  of 
the  beautiful  in  sound  and  in  certain  forms,  and  I  think 
that  in  its  broadest  signification  the  beautiful  may  be 
formulated  under  the  principle  of  harmony  or  correspond- 
ence; but  the  discussion  must  be  passed  by. 

It  is  not  alone  in  formal  music  that  sound  assumes 
the  character  of  the  beautiful.  From  the  chimes  of 
cathedral  bells  to  the  jingling  of  the  merry  sleigh-bells,  or 
the  "drowsy  tinkling"  of  the  cow-bell  in  the  distant  field; 
from  the  solo  of  a  Lucca  to  the  warbling  of  a  wood- 
thrush,  or  the  purling  of  a  mountain  trout-brook;  from 
the  majesty  of  a  sacred  chorus  to  the  distant  bleating  of 
the  homewai-d  herd  at  sunset,  or  the  cheery  chattering 
of  a  bevy  of  school-girls  on  a  picnic;  from  the  deep  bass 
of  the  organ  to  the  hoarse  voice  of  the  thunder,  or  the 
moaning  of  the  south  wind  in  the  pine  trees, —  these  all 
are  easy  transitions  to  forms  of  sound  which  in  them- 
selves are  beautiful,  and  are  often  doubly  pleasing  from 
the  fond  associations  with  which  they  renew  our  pleas- 
ures past. 


118  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

I  must  pass  from  forms  of  beauty  which  reach  us 
through  the  sensuous  perceptions;  and  lest  I  should  seem 
to  leave  the  treatment  of  the  subject  too  incomplete,  I 
must  remind  you  of  two  modes  of  the  beautiful  which 
reach  us  through  the  internal  perception.  The  first  is 
the  BEAUTY  OF  TRUTH.  It  is  given  especially  to  the  scholar 
to  discern  and  enjoy  it.  To  look  out  beyond  the  little 
sphere  which  bounds  our  personal  life,  and  discern  a  uni- 
verse so  designed  that  every  feature  strikes  a  responsive 
chord  in  us  ;  to  discover  a  God, —  a  heavenly  father,  as 
the  reality  after  which  our  human  souls  had  longed  ;  to 
consider  the  admirable  system  of  correspondences  and 
adaptations  through  which  every  object  which  exists  con- 
tributes to  the  well  being  of  every  other;  to  contemplate 
the  unity  of  truth,  as  in  the  science  of  quantity,  where 
the  same  result  comes  out  whether  sought  by  logarithms 
or  by  sines,  by  trigonometry  or  by  equations;  to  think  of 
the  majestic  unity  of  the  system  of  worlds,  all  knit  indis- 
solubly  in  a  cosmic  oi'ganism,  so  that,  whether  sun  or 
planet,  star  or  nebula,  each  is  a  living  picture  from  the 
life-time  of  every  other, —  such  revelations  of  the  unity, 
the  grandeur,  the  vastness,  the  unchangeableness  of  truth, 
enter  the  soul  which  opens  its  portals  for  them,  and  at- 
tune every  fibre  to  a  song  of  ecstacy.  This  is  the  Te 
Deum  of  the  intellect.  This  is  the  beatitude  of  science. 

The  second  mode  of  the  beautiful  revealed  to  the  in- 
ner sense  is  MORAL  BEAUTY.  Wherever  right  maintains 
a  manful  conflict  with  wrong ;  wherever  the  stout  and 
brave  arises  for  the  defense  of  helplessness  and  innocence; 
wherever  the  martyr  for  freedom  of  intellect  or  conscience 
hurls  defiance  at  his  persecutors,  or  reveals  a  fortitude 
stronger  than  the  fear  of  death  ;  wherever  friend  sacri- 


THE   BEAUTIFUL.  119 

fices  himself  for  the  love  of  his  friend ;  wherever  the 
mother  watches  and  waits  in  anxious  vigils  by  her  sick 
child's  bedside;  wherever  the  father,  for  his  family's  sake, 
welcomes  the  care  and  labor  which  waste  his  powers  and 
sap  his  life-blood;  wherever  a  stricken  heart  pours  its 
libation  of  tears  and  rekindles  a  tender  memory  over 
the  tomb  of  buried  love, —  in  all  these  acts  of  blessed  and 
beautiful  human  life  we  feel  that  there  is  drawn  up  from 
the  deep  susceptibilities  of  humanity  something  which  is 
divine  and  infinitely  beautiful.  Oh,  how  blessed  to  attain 
such  beauty  as  this! 

In  the  reason  of  every  one  exists  the  idea  of  perfect 
virtue, —  unspotted  purity.  We  think  of  that  ideal  purity 
with  a  feeling  of  admiration, —  with  a  feeling  of  aspira- 
tion. Oh,  who  has  not  sighed  for  a  nearer  approach  to 
that  ineffable  excellence? 

"Nearer,  my  God,  to  thee." 

Who  has  not  wept  that  with  all  his  aspirations  and  aims 
he  has  fallen  so  far  short  of  this  standard?  I  never  en- 
countered a  pure  and  guileless  character  but  I  felt  like 
falling  in  worship  before  it.  And  my  reverence  is  height- 
ened when  sinlessness  has  been  won  in  the  conflict  of 
temptation  and  the  storm  of  passion. 

Our  human  life  is  embellished  and  beautified  with  pic- 
tures of  immaculate  purity  blended  with  helpless  inno- 
cence. The  little  children  which  throng  our  pathways  and 
cling  to  our  necks, —  beautiful  messengers  which  come 
out  of  heaven  through  the  clouds  which  settle  about  the 
celestial  heights,  touch  our  hearts  and  melt  them  with 
the  sweet  radiance  of  their  innocent  faces,  utter  a  few 
phrases  which  live  moi'e  imperishably  in  our  memories 


120  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

than  the  aphorisms  of  the  wise,  and  then  unclasp  our 
necks,  close  their  eyes  and  return  to  heaven, —  are  they 
not  the  very  person  of  beauty  revealed  in  the  flesh? 

I  remember, —  I  shall  always  remember, —  the  heart- 
moan  of  a  dear  friend, —  a  stalwart  friend,  but  touched 
with  the  tenderness  which  bereavement  brings, —  shedding 
his  tears  over  the  buried  remains  of  his  little  daughter: 
"  She  was  not  transformed,"  he  said,  "  she  was  translated. 
She  was  -always  an  angel ;  how  she  came  from  heaven  I 
never  knew,  but  she  was  amongst  us;  she  spoke  our  lan- 
guage, but  always  with  a  meaning  more  than  the  words 
conveyed.  We  gave  her  a  name,  but  she  was  never  called 
by  it.  She  named  herself.  Undoubtedly  she  remembered 
the  name  she  bore  in  heaven.  There  was  always  a  fra- 
grance of  heaven  about  it.  No  one  could  take  it  upon 
his  lips  but  in  love.  She  bears  that  name  in  heaven 
again.  In  my  nightly  roamings,"  he  said,  "  through  that 
other  world,  which  is  not  beyond  the  stars,  but  just  be- 
hind the  veil  of  life,  I  have  heard  that  name  uttered  by 
gentle  lips, —  sisterly  lips, —  in  whose  every  accent  I  rec- 
ognized voices  I  had  once  known  in  my  waking  hours." 

Oh,  there  is  a  beauty  in  tears, —  whether  of  the  widow 
pleading  with  heaven,  or  the  stout  heart  crushed  in  a 
mysterious  bereavement. 

The  world  is  redundant  in  beauty.  Human  life  is  radi- 
ant in  beauty  and  redolent  of  heaven;  and  the  invisible 
world,  whose  threshold  only  thought  can  cross,  and  whose 
fabric  is  built  of  the  eternal  truth,  is  the  apocalypse  of 
the  beautiful  to  the  eye  of  intelligence.  Wheresoever 
beauty  abides,  there  is  cause  for  human  joy.  I  love  to 
forget  the  toils  and  sorrows  of  life,  exultant  in  the  bliss 
of  glimpses  which  come  from  a  life  on  the  sunny  side  of 


THE   BEAUTIFUL.  121 

all   earth's   gloom,   for   even  the  clouds,  when  they  must 
weep,  are  still  radiant  with  the  light  of  heaven. 

You  will  pardon  a  few  parting  sentences, —  such  as 
manhood  may  speak  to  youth.  I  would  leave  you  these 
words  of  encouragement.  I  would  they  might  be  words 
of  inspiration.  Hard  trials  will  come,  but  be  beautifully 
brave ;  be  beautifully  resigned ;  be  beautifully  hopeful. 
Seek  for  the  brightness  of  the  world.  You  have  placed 
open  the  doors  of  your  souls  for  the  admission  of  knowl- 
edge, and  culture,  and  discipline,  and  gentleness.  These 
guests  of  your  soul  have  garnished  it,  and  added  beauty 
is  shining  from  your  eyes  and  beaming  from  your  fea- 
tures. Let  the  doors  stand  open.  Give  generous  hospi- 
tality to  these  angel  agencies  of  loveliness  of  character. 
Press  into  the  presence  of  the  beautiful  and  hold  living 
communion  with  it, —  the  harmonious,  the  graceful,  the 
brave,  the  faithful,  the  devoted,  the  patient,  the  hopeful, 
the  pure.  Think  on  them.  Learn  chief  of  all  to  admire 
and  strive  after  the  beauty  of  character  exemplified  in 
Him  who  knew  no  guile,  and  who  offered  his  life  for 
love  of  a  world  which  had  rejected  him.  Then,  after 
having  enjoyed  the  beauty  of  God's  world,  you  will  leave 
behind  you  the  memory  of  a  beautiful  life,  and  renew 
existence  in  the  smile  of  Him  whose  unfailing  love,  in 
earth  and  sea  and  heaven,  in  song  and  smiles  and  tears, 
in  life,  and  even  in  death,  reveals  itself  in  the  BEAUTIFUL. 


THE  OLD  AGE  OF  CONTINENTS. 


"  r  I  "lIME  writes  no  wrinkle  on  thine  azure  brow,"  said 
-•-  Byron,  as  he  laid  his  hand  upon  old  ocean's  mane, 
"  Such  as  creation's  dawn  beheld,  thou  rollest  now."  Byron 
had  wandered  in  poetic  reverie  among  the  vestiges  of  an- 
cient empires,  and  sighed  to  think  how  the  greatest  works 
of  human  genius  dissolve  to  dust.  He  had  saddened,  per- 
haps, at  the  thought  of  his  own  inevitable  fate,  and  fancied 
that  in  the  "  deep  and  dark  blue  ocean "  only  could  be 
discerned  "  the  image  of  eternity."  Had  Byron  learned 
that  the  seven  hills  themselves,  on  which  had  sat  imperial 
Rome,  were  but  the  vestiges  of  an  older  order  of  things, 
and  that  even  solid  continents  have  crumbled  like  the 
Coliseum,  a  deeper  tinge  would  have  colored  his  habitual 
melancholy.  Happy  had  it  been  for  Byron  could  he  have 
practiced  the  belief  in  the  existence  and  eternity  of  his 
own  spirit,  which  he  sometimes  confessed,  for  there  is 
nothing  but  spirit  which  bears  "  the  image  of  eternity." 
The  "  everlasting  hills," —  the  fancied  types  of  solidity 
and  endurance, —  are  but  a  passing  phase  in  the  history 
of  terrestrial  matter.  The  mountain's  sullen  brow  has 
frowned  where  quiet  vales  expand  themselves  to  the  morn- 
ing light,  and  fields  and  cities  smile  where  rugged  cliffs 
and  abysmal  gorges  long  delayed  the  advent  of  a  race 
that  had  been  heralded  through  the  geologic  ages. 

Even  continents  have  their  life-time.     They  germinate; 
they  grow;  they  attain  to  full  expansion  and  beauty;  they 


THE   OLD   AGE   OF   CONTINENTS.  123 

fulfill  their  mission  in  the  economy  of  matter  and  of  life; 
the  furrows  of  senescence  channel  their  wasted  faces,  and 
they  return  to  mud  and  slime  whence  they  were  born. 
The  very  substance  of  the  solid  floors  which  underlie  the 
soil  of  American  freedom,  is  but  the  dust  of  continents 
decayed.  As  modern  cities  are  sometimes  built  from  the 
ruins  of  ancient  temples  on  whose  sites  they  stand,  so 
the  dwelling  place  prepared  for  man  by  the  hand  of  Na- 
ture is  but  the  reconstructed  material  of  a  more  ancient 
continent,  the  work  of  Nature's  "  '  prentice  hand."  The 
vertical  thickness  of  fifty  thousand  feet  of  sedimentary 
strata  measures  the  depth  of  the  rubbish  accumulated 
from  mountain  cliffs  and  continental  slopes  that  have 
been  transformed  by  the  wand  of  time.  We  sometimes 
forget  that  the  total  volume  of  our  stratified  rocks  is 
but  an  index  of  the  denudations  and  obliterations  that 
have  been  wrought.  Much  calcareous  material  has,  in- 
deed, been  yielded  by  the  sea,  but  the  sea  first  filched 
it  from  the  land. 

The  revelation  made  by  every  formation  which  we 
study,  from  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  Palaeozoic  series, 
points  to  the  north  and  northeast  as  the  origin  of  the 
stream  of  sediments  that  spread  over  the  bottom  of  the 
American  lagoon  which  stretched  as  a  broad  and  shallow 
ocean  from  the  rising  but  yet  submarine  slopes  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies  on  the  east,  to  the  embryonic  ridges  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  on  the  west.  Northeastward  of  the  present 
continent  have  undoubtedly  existed  supplies  of  incalcula- 
ble magnitude  of  which  the  merest  vestiges  remain.  The 
geologist  leads  us  to  the  region  north  of  the  great  lakes 
and  the  St.  Lawrence  river,  and  points  out  the  Lauren- 
tide  Ridge  as  the  nucleus  of  the  eastern  portion  of  our 


124  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

continent.  Around  its  bases  have  been  wrapped  layer  upon 
layer  of  accumulating  sediments,  till  the  ocean  has  been 
banished  from  a  broad  belt  of  his  ancient  dominion.  But 
this,  instead  of  being  the  real  nucleus  of  the  American 
continent,  is  but  the  vestige  of  that  nucleus.  How  vastly 
inferior  in  height  and  breadth,  and  especially  in  north- 
eastward prolongation  to  that  primordial  continent  whose 
crumbling  shores  and  denuded  slopes  afforded  material 
for  the  broad  sheets  of  Silurian,  Devonian  and  Carbon- 
iferous strata  which  stretch  a  thousand  miles  in  every  di- 
rection! Where  lay  the  dissolving  lands  which  furnished 
substance  for  the  ponderous  Alleghanies?  It  must  be 
that  vast  areas  have  disappeared  from  view.  Though  I 
believe,  with  Dana,  that  the  modern  continents  were  out- 
lined in  primeval  time,  and  the  ocean  still  reposes  in  his 
ancient  bed,  we  must  not  be  too  exact  in  the  enuncia- 
tion of  our  faith.  The  Aleutian  Islands,  stretching  from 
Alaska  across  the  North  Pacific,  are  but  the  protruding 
vertebrae  of  an  eroded  ancient  ridge  which  welded  the  Ori- 
ent to  the  Occident.  New  England,  Gaspe,  the  Labrador 
elbow, —  these  all  reach  toward  the  site  of  an  obliterated 
prolongation, —  a  friendly  arm  of  the  American  conti- 
nent stretched  out  to  greet  the  continental  arm  of  Europe 
extended  from  the  British  Archipelago  toward  America. 
Newfoundland,  Cape  Breton,  Prince  Edward's,  Anticosti, — 
these  are  but  the  highest  summits  of  that  wasted  ridge, 
as  Ireland  and  Great  Britain  are  the  relics  of  the  ridge 
responsive  to  this  upon  the  European  side.  The  subma- 
rine plateau,  along  whose  back  creeps  the  great  Atlantic 
cable,  though  sunken  ten  thousand  feet  beneath  the  reach 
of  further  denudation,  is  but  the  stump  of  an  ancient 
continent  that  has  been  gnawed  to  the  very  foundations. 


THE   OLD   AGE   OF   CONTINENTS.  125 

It  is  interesting  to  reflect  that  advancing  civilization  has 
at  last  reestablished  the  amicable  intercommunication 
of  two  continents  which  had  been  embraced,  perhaps,  in 
the  ordinations  of  primeval  time. 

Such  are  the  reminiscences  of  a  wasted  continent  of 
which  the  Laurentide  nucleus  is  but  a  trace.  We  stand 
upon  this  venerable  relic  of  long- forgotten  lands,  and  the 
current  of  time  sweeps  by,  bearing  upon  its  dark  bosom 
the  wrecks  of  other  continents  born  of  earthquake  and 
flood  in  the  later  ages  of  terrestrial  history.  But  though 
we  intend  to  rescue  from  oblivion  the  tales  inscribed  upon 
these  disappearing  ruins,  thought  lingers  fondly  and  rev- 
erently and  inquiringly  around  the  scorched  and  beaten 
brow  of  this  Laurentide  Ridge.  What  was  its  mother? 
And  where  was  its  birth-place?  These  ancient  granites 
and  thickly- bedded  gneisses, —  thrice  baked  and  crystal- 
lized by  the  fiery  ordeals  through  which  they  have  passed, 
—  bear,  nevertheless,  the  ineffaceable  traces  of  old  ocean's 
work.  Here  are  the  lines  of  sediment  which  betray  the 
parentage  of  these  hardened  and  storm-beaten  rocks. 
Back  into  another  cycle  of  eternity  imagination  plunges 
in  search  of  that  more  ancient  land  that  was  recon- 
structed in  this  "  primordial  "  ridge.  To  say  that  it  did 
not  exist  is  to  say  that  old  ocean  could  pile  up  masonry 
without  a  supply  of  bricks  and  mortar.  In  the  realm 
of  thought  that  earlier  land  looms  up,  but  its  bounds 
and  borders  are  obscured  by  the  overhanging  fogs  which 
haunt  the  early  twilight  of  time.  The  skies  themselves 
are  strange,  and  our  science  gropes  for  the  data  which 
shall  fix  the  latitude  and  longitude  of  this  undiscovered 
country.  Was  it  still  another  pile  of  rocks  reared  by  the 
labors  of  water?  Or  was  it  a  mass  of  ancient  slag,  the 


126  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

first-born  products  of  primeval  refrigeration  of  a  molten 
globe?  There  was  an  earliest  land, —  a  dome  of  lava  just 
cooled  from  the  fiery  abyss  of  molten  matter, —  a  film  of 
frozen  dolerite  or  pophyry  stretched  around  the  fluent 
globe, —  a  solid  floor  on  which  descended  from  the  gath- 
ered clouds  the  waters  which  formed  a  sea  without  a 
shore.  There  must  have  been  a  time  when  the  surges 
were  first  summoned  to  their  work.  To  assert,  with  Hall, 
that  it  is  idle  to  dream  of  such  a  beginning,  because,  for- 
sooth, the  traces  of  the  morning's  work  have  been  ob- 
literated by  the  operations  of  mid-day,  is  to  plunge  into 
the  fallacies  of  a  philosophy  fashionable  in  some  quar- 
ters, and  narrowly  assert  that  there  is  no  knowledge  but 
that  which  the  senses  certify. 

We  turn  now  our  thoughts  down  the  stream  of  time, 
and  note  the  relics  of  later  revolutions.  Not  for  etei-nity 
were  laid  the  floors  of  the  Old  Eed  Sandstone  strata  which 
once  stretched,  perhaps,  from  the  Catskills  to  Massachu- 
setts Bay.  Not  for  etei-nity  were  reared  the  Appalachian 
summits  whose  elevation  celebrated  the  close  of  Palaeozoic 
time.  The  Catskills  are  but  a  pile  of  horizontal  strata; 
spared  by  the  gigantic  denudations  which  scraped  the 
face  of  New  England  to  the  bone,  and  washed  away  a 
third  of  the  Empire  State.  The  continuation  of  the  Cats- 
kill  strata  is  discovered  again  in  Pennsylvania,  Western 
New  York,  Ohio,  and  Michigan.  Who  shall  undertake  to 
delineate  the  topography,  the  drainage,  the  vegetation,  the 
populations  of  that  ancient  New  England  surface  which 
now  lies  strown,  perhaps,  from  the  bottom  of  Long  Island 
Sound  to  the  farther  shore  of  New  Jersey?  Who  shall 
write  an  epic  on  the  fortunes  of  that  mythical  forefather 
land?  The  summits  of  the  Alleghanies,  geologists  tell  us, 


THE   OLD    AGE   OF   CONTINENTS.  127 

have  settled  down  some  thousands  of  feet.  Their  huge, 
protruding  folds,  plaited  together  in  compact  array,  have 
been  planed  down  to  their  innermost  core;  and  from  the 
chips  have  been  produced  the  lowlands  of  the  south  At- 
lantic border, —  like  the  waterfront  raised  in  a  modern 
city  by  carting  down  the  sand-hills  in  the  rear.  The  very 
coal-beds  interwoven  in  their  stony  structure  are  but  the 
fossilized  swamps  of  an  ancient  continental  surface  that 
has  disappeared, —  clothed  once  by  forest  trees  whose  fam- 
ily types  have  dropped  from  the  ranks  of  existence,  and 
populated  by  those  strange  amphibians, —  half  fish,  half  rep- 
tile,—  which,  like  the  fabled  Colossus,  bridged  the  chasm 
between  two  dominions. 

There  was  a  long  and  mediaeval  time  in  American 
history  of  which  our  records  are  mostly  lost.  The  coal 
lands  had  been  finished;  the  atmosphere  had  been  purged; 
the  Appalachians  had  been  raised,  and  from  their  bases 
stretched  westward  beyond  the  destined  valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi an  undulating  upland  but  lately  redeemed  from 
the  dominion  of  interminable  bogs.  The  western  border 
of  this  land  skirted  a  mediterranean  sea  through  which, 
probably,  the  Gulf  Stream  coursed,  in  certain  cycles,  at 
least,  from  the  tropics  to  the  frozen  ocean.  Here  was 
accumulated  a  soil;  here  descended  genial  rains;  here 
flourished  tropical  plants,  and  here  wound  majestic  riv- 
ers, fed  by  their  hundreds  of  tributary  streams.  All  traces 
of  this  continental  surface  have  disappeared.  Terrestrial 
animals  must  have  populated  the  spacious  forests;  insects 
uttered  their  sleepy  hum  amid  the  luxuriant  foliage  of 
evergreen  conifers;  sluggish  Labyrinthodonts  crawled  from 
beneath  the  shade  of  perennial  Cycads,  and  mailed  and 
armored  fishes  fought  against  the  invasion  of  more  modern 


128  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

types  in  waters  bordered  by  forests  of  plane-trees,  poplars, 
and  a  multitude  of  other  forms  already  assuming  the  as- 
pects of  the  finished  age  of  the  world.  This  ancient  home 
of  vegetable  and  animal  life  spread  over  the  States  of  Ohio, 
and  Indiana,  and  Illinois,  and  Kentucky,  and  all  the  re- 
gion contiguous  to  these.  River  channels  were  dug  whose 
very  locations  we  seek  in  vain.  Cities  and  villages  and 
verdant  farms  now  stand  upon  sites  above  which  waved  a 
somber  forest  whose  every  trace  has  been  wiped  from  the 
face  of  the  continent,  while  the  very  soil  in  which  their 
roots  were  bedded  has  been  transported  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico.  Those  broad  and  fertile  plains  performed  their 
part  in  the  history  of  terrestrial  preparations,  and  like 
the  pictures  on  the  lithographer's  stone,  they  have  been 
completely  erased,  to  be  succeeded  by  the  next  scene  in  the 
succession  of  continental  landscapes. 

There  was  an  ancient  surface  on  which  was  growing 
the  cinnamon,  the  plane-tree,  the  magnolia,  and  other 
tropical  and  sub- tropical  forest-growths.  It  stretched 
from  the  borders  of  the  Atlantic  to  the  slopes  of  the  Pa- 
cific, and  from  the  Mexican  Gulf  to  the  shores  of  the  frozen 
ocean.  It  was  the  American  continent  now  first  extend- 
ing its  limbs  after  a  protracted  embryonic  growth.  We 
are  not  positively  informed  whether  to  the  east  of  the 
Mississippi  this  continent  was  the  continuation  in  time  of 
that  which  resulted  from  the  changes  closing  the  Carbon- 
iferous Age;  but  we  well  know,  since  Dr.  Newberry's 
explorations,  that  in  the  far  west,  over  the  Colorado  plains, 
was  a  vast  region  which  had  but  recently  emerged  from 
the  bed  of  ocean  waters.*  Here  lies  the  "great  central 

*J.  S.  Newberry,  in  Ives'  Colorado  Expedition.  See  later  and  more  de- 
tailed information  in  the  government  reports,  especially  the  Atlas  of  Colorado, 


THE    OLD   AGE    OF   CONTINENTS.  129 

plateau  "  of  the  continent,  formed  of  the  vast  stony  sheets, 
piled  one  above  the  other,  which  have  never  been  tilted 
from  their  approximate  horizontality  since  the  beginning 
of  Palaeozoic  time.  And  here,  again,  we  are  led  to  inquire: 
Whence  so  vast  an  amount  of  sedimentary  material,  strewed 
through  Palaeozoic,  Mesozoic,  and  Tertiary  ages,  over  the 
bottom  of  that  broad  continental  ocean?  Whei-e  now  those 
wide-extended  lands  or  towering  mountain  ridges  whose 
dissolving  substance  yielded  sand  and  cement  for  the  Ti- 
tanic masonry  of  a  new-made  continent?*  Wherever  it 
was,  and  whatever  it  was,  the  "  tooth  of  time  "  has  gnawed 
it  to  a  skeleton.  It  is  a  continent  of  the  past,  worn  out  by 
the  uses  to  which  nature  has  subjected  every  continental 
area  in  turn,  and  which  to-day  are  wearing  out  and  de- 
stroying the  land  on  which,  for  the  passing  time,  the  hu- 
man race,  like  those  which  have  preceded  it,  has  found 
a  momentary  foothold. 

But  the  great  central  plateau,  once  freshly  formed  from 
the  older  lands  which  were  exhausted  in  its  formation,  is 
in  turn  but  the  ruins  of  a  former  fruitful  and  smiling 
region.  For  nearly  a  thousand  miles  in  breadth,  and 
probably  two  thousand  miles  in  length, —  stretching  from 
the  Mormon  monarchy  southward  far  into  the  republic 
of  Mexico, —  a  frightful  desert  reigns.  Naked  rocks  and 

compiled  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  F.  V.  Hayden,  and  the  accompanying  text; 
also  Capt.  C.  E.  Button's  Geology  of  the  High  Plateaus  of  Utah,  prepared  under 
the  direction  of  Maj.  J.  W.  Powell. 

*  Mr.  Clarence  King,  in  his  Survey  along  the  fortieth  Parallel,  has  shown 
that  a  great  western  continent  existed  during  Palaeozoic  time  in  the  western 
portion  of  the  Great  Basin  or  present  Nevada  plateau,  which  was  mostly  sub- 
merged at  the  end  of  Carboniferous  time.  By  the  end  of  Jurassic  time,  the  Sierra 
Nevada  and  Basin  Ranges  to  the  east  had  become  uplifted.  At  the  end  of  the 
Cretaceous,  the  Uinta  and  Wahsatch  ranges  appeared,  together  with  some  new 
portions  of  the  RocKy  Mountains.  It  is  probable  that  the  denudation  of  these 
regions  supplied  a  large  part  of  the  sediments  which  went  to  build  up  the  vast 
plateau  regions  in  Colorado  and  Utah. 


130  SPAEKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

thirsty  sands,  and  shrubless,  treeless  wastes  are  only  di- 
versified by  yawning  chasms  and  dismal  cafions  and  Cy- 
clopean walls  rising  in  the  distance  from  height  to  height, 
like  the  gigantic  steps  by  which  the  monster  Typhon 
scaled  the  realm  of  Jove.  Once  on  a  time  a  thousand 
mountain  streams  leaped  down  upon  this  plain,  and  gath- 
ered themselves  by  degrees  together,  and  grew  into  the 
majestic  Colorado,  which  glided  quietly,  or  by  occasional 
falls,  into  the  gulf  of  California, —  itself  now  shrunken  to 
half  its  former  dimensions.  At  intervals,  expanded  crys- 
tal lakes,  turning  their  mirror  surface  toward  the  sun  as 
cheerfully  as  ever  smiled  Lake  George.  The  incumbent 
atmosphere  drank  copiously  from  the  abundant  waters, 
and  returned  its  deluges  of  thanks  in  cooling  summer 
showers.  Thus  herb  and  shrub  and  forest  tree  rejoiced, 
alternately,  in  smiling  sunlight  and  refreshing  rain.  The 
great  central  plateau  was  the  prairie  region  of  the  con- 
tinent. It  was  this,  perhaps,  while  the  region  east  of  the 
Mississippi  was  lying  a  worn-out  desert  waste,  unreno- 
vated  since  the  age  which  witnessed  the  elevation  of  the 
Alleghanies.  But  the  ceaseless  erosion  of  running  streams, 
for  thousands  of  years  unnumbered,  has  sunken  the  water- 
courses of  the  central  plateau  to  the  depths  of  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  feet ;  every  lake  is  drained  ;  the  local 
supply  of  moisture  has  disappeared  ;  the  streams  have 
withered  in  their  ancient  channels ;  vegetation  has  re- 
treated to  the  mountain  slopes;  the  giant  Cereus  alone 
rears  its  specter  form  like  a  ghostly  visitant  to  the  graves 
of  its  former  kindred. 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  before  the  advent  of 
the  glacier  epoch  nearly  the  whole  of  North  America  was 
a  worn-out  continent.  It  is  possible,  however,  that  most 


THE   OLD   AGE   OF   CONTINENTS.  131 

of  the  denudation  of  the  central  plateau  has  occurred 
during  and  since  the  prevalence  of  glaciers  over  the 
northeastern  portion  of  the  continent.  As  to  the  region 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  however,  we  know  that  it  was  an 
upland  continental  area,  while  even  the  rocky  foundations 
of  the  great  plateau  were  accumulating  in  the  bottom  of 
an  ocean.  It  is  difficult  to  conceive  how  this  eastern 
region,  on  the  advent  of  the  glacier  epoch,  could  have 
presented  a  surface  greatly  less  eroded  and  desert  than 
that  which  the  Colorado  valley  presents  to-day.  Vegeta- 
tion, undoubtedly,  held  possession  of  the  borders  of  the 
water-courses;  and  it  must  be  remembered  the  conditions 
of  atmospheric  precipitation  were,  even  at  that  time,  as 
much  superior  to  those  of  the  arid  western  plains  as  they 
now  are.  Nevertheless,  the  local  sources  of  humidity 
had  mostly  dried  up,  and  the  ancient  rivers  had  sunken 
hundreds  of  feet  into  dismal  gorges  that  were  destined  to 
be  their  graves.  Traces  of  these  fossil  river-channels  are 
frequently  encountered.  Dr.  Newberry  has  pointed  out 
their  existence  in  Ohio  ;  General  Warren  has  indicated 
their  presence  in  Wisconsin,  Minnesota  and  Dakota.  The 
latter  has  also  shown  that  a  depression  of  the  northeast- 
ern region  of  the  continent,  which  is  even  now  in  prog- 
ress, has  turned  northward  and  eastward  the  drainage 
of  Winnipeg  and  other  lakes  which  once  poured  their 
surplusage  through  the  Minnesota  and  Mississippi  rivers. 
The  great  glacier,  in  its  movement  over  the  surface  of 
the  Northern  States,  together  with  changes  of  level  and 
the  action  of  torrents  of  water  springing  from  the  bosom 
of  the  dissolving  ice-field,  has  totally  transformed  the 
face  of  this  portion  of  the  continent.  The  ancient  river- 
courses  have  been  filled  ;  the  rugged,  eroded  and  naked 


132  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

rocks  have  been  reclothed  with  fresh  materials  for  vegeta- 
ble sustenance;  the  surface  is  again  strewed  with  vapor- 
making  lakes,  and  plants  and  animals,  and  man  himself, 
find  in  the  renovated  continent  the  fitting  conditions  of 
their  prosperity. 

But  this  last  stage  of  things  can  no  more  be  perma- 
nent than  that  which  has  preceded.  The  present  conti- 
nent is  destined  to  experience  the  symptoms  of  senescence 
and  decay.  Every  year  the  untiring  streams  transport 
new  portions  of  the  land  into  the  bottom  of  the  ocean. 
The  Alleghanies  mingle  their  tribute  to  the  sea  with  that 
which  is  yielded  by  the  distant  Rocky  Mountains. 

"  The  Father  of  Waters 
Seizes  the  hills  in  his  hands  and  drags  them  down  to  the  ocean." 

From  age  to  age  the  mountain-tops  are  descending  to  the 
plain;  the  rounded  hills  are  shrinking;  the  gorges  are  deep- 
ening; the  changing  vegetal  growths  are  responding  to 
the  changing  conditions;  the  present  is  passing  away;  once 
more  the  wrinkles  of  age  will  furrow  the  face  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  the  populous  organisms  which  had  found  a 
fitting  home  upon  it  will  exist  no  more.  The  valley  of 
the  Mississippi  is  no  more  fertile  than  was  once  the  valley 
of  the  Colorado.  We  read  in  the  present  condition  of  the 
latter  the  destiny  which  awaits  the  former.  The  slow  but 
inevitable  steps  are  in  progress  before  our  eyes.  The 
"  image  of  eternity  "  can  be  discerned  neither  in  the  ocean, 
which  is  but  an  instrument  for  the  accumulation  of  solid 
land,  nor  in  the  rocky  foundations  of  the  land,  which 
from  cycle  to  cycle  are  re-wrought  into  the  masonry  of 
renovated  continental  surfaces.  Man  himself,  who  popu- 
lates but  one  of  these  successive  "  time-worlds,"  is  destined 


THE   OLD   AGE   OF   CONTINENTS.  133 

to  yield  to  impending  revolution.  Human  history  is  but 
a  scene  in  the  moving  panorama  of  life,  and  its  term  is 
no  less  certain  than  that  of  the  Mesozoic  saurians.  It 
may  be  the  last  scene,  but  it  will  not  be  perpetual.  Its 
limitations  are  inscribed  upon  the  scroll  of  the  geologic 
ages,  and  proclaimed  in  the  events  of  the  passing  hour. 

Neither  can  the  series  of  continental  renovations  con- 
tinue without  limit.  The  time  must  come  when  the  earth 
itself  will  be  "  in  the  sere  and  yellow  leaf."  The  forces 
which  hoist  a  continent  dripping  from  the  depths  of  a  re- 
cent ocean  will  be  weary  of  their  labors.  Already  they 
act  with  greatly  lessened  energy.  These,  like  all  other 
forces,  are  seeking  rest.  Equilibrium  and  stagnation  are 
the  goal  of  all  mechanical  activities.  Uplifted  mountains, 
denuded  continents,  oblitei-ated  seas,  appearing  and  dis- 
appearing races, —  these  are  all  but  the  incidents  of  the 
progress  of  all  terrestrial  forces  to  a  state  of  ultimate  re- 
pose. Not  only  has  nature  fixed  the  limits  of  our  race; 
she  has  equally  staked  out  the  duration  of  the  present  ter- 
restrial order,  and  proclaimed  in  the  ears  of  all  intelli- 
gences that  the  flow  of  events  which  we  trace  so  clearly 
to  a  remote  beginning  is  destined,  in  the  distant  future, 
to  be  merged  again  into  ancient  chaos.  So  the  perpetu- 
ity of  the  cosmical  order  is  not  insured  by  the  laws  of 
matter  alone.  An  omnific  Arm  begins,  sustains,  controls 
the  evolutions  of  the  successive  cycles  of  material  history. 

The  indications  of  continental  decay  at  which  we  have 
glanced  are  worthy  of  further  study.  I  shall,  therefore, 
resume  the  theme  and  point  out  other  cases  of  continental 
wastage  which  have  resulted  in  obliteration. 


OBLITERATED  CONTINENTS. 


npHE  mute  and  inanimate  rocks,  to  one  who  questions 
•*-  them,  are  rich  in  teaching  and  suggestions.  They 
speak  not;  they  bear  no  record  in  any  human  language; 
yet,  in  reason's  ear,  they  are  vocal  with  instruction;  to 
reason's  eye  they  are  all  luminous  with  the  thought  which 
beams  from  the  hieroglyphics  inscribed  upon  their  pages. 
It  is  a  further  lesson  of  wastage  which  we  propose  now 
to  study.  The  rocks  are  not  imperishable;  and  theii 
very  disappearance  is  a  text  for  reflection.  I  stand  be- 
neath a  beetling  cliff,—  perchance  the  beetling  sandstone 
cliffs  of  Chautauqua  county,  in  New  York,  or  of  the  "  Pict- 
ured Rocks"  at  Lake  Superior,  or,  perchance,  those  banded 
and  variegated  courses  of  crumbling  masonry  which  wall 
in  the  valley  of  the  Upper  Mississippi, —  and  there  I  per- 
ceive not  only  that  a  portion  of  the  rocky  mass  has  been 
removed,  but  also  that  which  remains  is  merely  the  de- 
bris, the  ruins,  of  some  former  rock  or  rocks  which  were 
ground  to  fragments  to  build  up  the  foundation  which 
constitutes  these  massive  walls  and  these  overstretching 
shelters.  If  I  scrutinize  any  of  these  cliffs,  I  find  them 
composed  of  grains  of  sand.  It  is  a  quartz  sand.  In  those 
words  I  imply  that  a  quartz  rock  has  at  some  time  been 
broken  into  fine  fragments.  Some  agency  has  assorted  the 
fragments  and  brought  the  finer  ones  together  here,  in 
these  magnificent  ranges  of  sandstone  precipices, —  in  these 


OBLITERATED   CONTINENTS.  135 

extensive  sandstone  formations,  which  underlie  whole  coun- 
ties,—  which  underlie,  or  have  underlaid,  states  broad 
enough  for  an  empire. 

How  few  of  us  have  reflected  in  this  direction.  The 
very  rocks  which  underlie  Chicago  or  New  York  are  a  pile 
of  ruins.  Everywhere,  the  rocks  are  almost  universally 
old  material  made  over, —  who  can  say  how  many  times 
made  over?  The  geologist  formerly  discoursed  of  fire- 
formed  rocks;  and  regarded  granite  and  its  associates  as 
rocks  that  had  assumed  their  present  condition  from  a 
state  of  fusion.  Now  we  are  persuaded  that  granite,  like 
sandstones,  has  had  a  sedimentary  origin.  It  was  once  a 
mass  of  sand  and  mud  upon  a  sea-bottom.  Heat  has  sub- 
sequently baked  the  materials,  and  almost  obliterated  the 
ancient  lines  of  stratification.  The  rocks  now  admitted 
to  be  of  igneous  origin  are  few.  Only  ancient  and  mod- 
ern lavas  are  fire- formed  rocks. 

How  vast,  then,  has  been  the  destruction  of  the  land  in 
ancient  times!  The  entire  mass  of  the  solid  crust  of  the 
earth  —  save  only  the  lavas  —  must  be  taken  as  the  meas- 
ure of  the  wastage  or  denudation  of  the  older  lands. 
Reflect  upon  the  thickness  of  these  strata, —  reaching,  per- 
haps, a  hundred  thousand  feet,  and  enwrapping  the  entire 
globe.  Only  the  oldest  layers  or  formations  are  absolutely 
continuous;  and  the  very  newest  occur  in  patches  of  limited 
extent;  but  the  newer  as  well  as  the  older  underlie  all  the 
seas,  and  the  mean  thickness  is  so  vast  as  to  convey  a  vivid 
idea  of  the  amount  of  work  which  has  been  done  by  geo- 
logical agencies  in  diminishing,  or  even  obliterating,  conti- 
nental masses  whose  sites  are  now  lost,  or  known  only 
from  surviving  vestiges. 

Tt  is  an  interesting  thought, —  an  impressive  thought, — 


136  SPARKS  FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

that  mountains  which  once  reared  their  heads  above  the 
clouds  have  been  gnawed  down  by  the  tooth  of  time;  and 
that  whole  continents,  built  on  foundations  of  granite, 
once  clothed  with  somber  forests,  and  swarming  with  the 
humble  populations  of  a  primeval  time,  have  been  literally 
eaten  up  by  the  sea.  Lift  up  your  eyes  and  behold  the 
proofs.  Look  around  you  and  contemplate  the  fragments 
of  a  meal  which  consisted  of  mountains  and  cubic  miles 
of  solid  land. 

We  turn  again  to  a  survey  of  some  of  the  facts.  There 
is  a  region  on  the  American  continent  which  we  style  the 
Archaean.  It  lies  north  of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  great 
lakes.  It  is  composed  of  the  oldest  rocks  known  to  geology. 
There  they  come  to  the  surface;  but  we  know  that  they 
continue  underneath  formations  of  more  recent  date,  both 
on  the  north  and  the  south.  They  spread  under  us  every- 
where. These  rocks  are  hard  and  crystalline.  They  em- 
brace granites  and  syenites  and  diorites;  but  they  are  all 
sedimentary.  They  are  not  a  part  of  the  primitive,  fire- 
formed  crust  of  the  earth;  they  are  fragmental.  Some 
older  formation  —  some  older  land  —  has  been  worn  down 
to  supply  the  material  for  these  vast  beds  of  detritus. 
But  I  said  these  are  the  oldest  rocks  known.  The  oldest 
known  rocks  are  composed  of  worked-over  material.  The 
oldest  known  rocks  are  built  of  the  ruins  of  some  wasted 
land,  on  which  human  eyes  have  never  rested.  Where 
lay  the  lands  whose  slowly  crumbling  shores  yielded  the 
quartz  and  the  granite  to  build  up  the  Laurentide  hills? 
When  these  hills  first  rose,  slime-covered,  from  the  uni- 
versal sea,  only  a  waste  of  waters  surrounded  them.  We 
are  certain,  at  least,  that  for  many  geologic  periods  the 
ocean  expanse,  on  all  sides,  was  unbroken.  Land  there 


OBLITERATED    CONTINENTS.  137 

certainly  had  been, —  dry  land,  arid  land,  formed  of  the 
first  cooled  crust  of  the  globe.  This  has  disappeared  by 
the  encroachment  of  heat  from  beneath.  It  is  possible 
there  was  a  time  when  some  portion  of  this  primitive  lava- 
crust  stood  forth  above  the  level  of  the  ancient  ocean.  It 
is  possible  that  the  old  Archsean  land  is  built  of  the  ruins 
of  a  fire-formed  continent.  But  I  deem  it  more  probable 
that  the  Archsean  materials  have  been  more  than  once 
worked  over.  But  wherever  the  ti'uth  may  lie  in  this  re- 
spect, the  very  constitution  of  the  oldest  rocks  which  we 
know  proclaims  the  existence  of  an  obliterated  continent. 
Turn  next  to  this  Archaean  continent  itself.  On  its  own 
part  it  reveals  a  wastage  of  enormous  magnitude.  The 
great  sheets  of  rocky  material  rest  like  lumber  piled  on 
edge.  On  opposite  slopes  of  the  Laurentide  region  the 
strata  point  up  to  a  meeting  place  some  thousands  of  feet 
above  the  highest  levels  as  they  now  exist.  Clearly,  the 
Laurentide  range  was  at  one  time  a  mountain  chain  which 
has  been  planed  down  to  moderate  levels  by  the  action  of 
erosive  agencies.  Turn  toward  the  eastward  prolongation 
of  this  low  range  of  Canadian  hills  north  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence. This  ancient  land  abuts  against  the  coast  of  Lab- 
rador. But  now  the  navigator  brings  us  new  suggestions. 
The  sounding  plummet  has  felt  of  the  ocean's  bottom  all 
the  way  from  Newfoundland  to  Ireland.  There  is  the 
"  telegraphic  plateau."  On  this  rests  the  great  Atlantic 
cable.  Here,  in  this  shallow  water, —  along  this  submerged 
ridge, —  do  we  not  discover  the  stump  of  the  ancient  pro- 
longation of  the  Archaean  land?  Are  not  Newfoundland, 
Cape  Breton,  New  Brunswick,  and  the  smaller  islands  of 
that  vicinity,  remaining  patches  of  a  continental  prolon- 
gation which  has  been  worn  down  by  the  waves?  And 


138          -  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

are  not  Ireland  and  the  smaller  contiguous  islands  on  the 
European  side  the  vestiges  of  the  remote  extremity  of  the 
Archaean  land  of  America?  And  were  not  Great  Britain 
and  America  once  united  in  bonds  of  granite?  And  is 
not  the  telegraphic  cable  which  reunites  them  an  instru- 
ment for  the  fulfillment  of  a  destiny? 

Who  can  declare  whither  the  substance  of  the  Archaean 
continent  has  gone?  Where  are  the  cubic  miles  of  stuff 
which  have  been  taken  from  the  higher  altitudes  of  the 
Laurentide  range,  and  from  that  Atlantic  prolongation 
which  is  now  reduced  to  a  submei-ged  stump?  I  think  we 
may  safely  say  the  sandstones  of  Potsdam,  in  New  York, 
are  formed  from  Archaean  material.  The  cliffs  at  Little 
Falls  and  Albany  are  formed  of  materials  contributed  by 
the  older  land.  I  think  we  may  say  that  the  vast  beds  of 
Silurian,  Devonian  and  Carboniferous  strata  account  for 
some  of  the  material  missing  from  the  Archaean  continent. 
There  are  the  Alleghany  mountains, —  or  better,  the  entire 
Appalachian  chain, —  built  out  of  coarse  materials  brought 
from  the  northeast.  We  know  they  came  from  the  north- 
east because  the  materials  grow  coarser  in  that  direction. 
The  lighter  fragments  —  the  sands  and  clays  —  are  trans- 
ported farthest  from  the  shore.  It  was  the  sea  which  per- 
formed this  work  of  transportation.  It  was  the  sea  which 
conspired  with  the  storms  of  heaven  in  tearing  down  the 
old  land  to  convey  it  into  the  territory  of  the  United 
States.  There,  in  a  long  stream,  stretching  from  New 
England  to  Alabama,  the  "  dust  of  a  continent  to  be  "  was 
laid  down  in  the  bottom  of  the  ocean. 

Now,  in  this  search  for  continental  relics,  turn  south- 
ward. There  are  the  West  India  islands,  composed  also 
of  ancient  rocks,  perhaps  mostly,  certainly  not  altogether, 


OBLITERATED    CONTINENTS.  139 

of  rocks  of  the  same  age  as  those  forming  the  Laui'en- 
tide  hills.  I  think  it  probable  another  continent  spread 
over  the  Caribbean  Sea  at  the  time  of  the  continental 
connection  of  America  and  Europe.  There,  where  that 
primitive  continent  la}',  are  Cuba,  now,  and  Jamaica,  and 
the  lesser  Antilles, —  hundreds  in  number, —  the  rags  and 
tatters  of  a  land  once  continuous  —  perhaps  beautiful  — 
perhaps  enduring  until  the  middle  ages  of  geological  his- 
toi-y,  and  then  populated  by  the  grotesque  forms  of  rep- 
tiles, which  were,  in  that  time,  the  highest  and  the  dom- 
inant type  of  beings  upon  the  earth.  That  West  Indian 
continent  overlapped  a  small  portion  of  South  America. 
Guiana  was  annexed  to  that  which  has  become  the  West 
Indies.  All  other  parts  of  South  America  were  beneath 
the  sea.  The  Andes  —  ah!  the  Andes  were  building  —  re- 
ceiving, probably,  the  self-same  material  which  was  dis- 
appearing from  the  West  Indian  continent.  Stretching 
from  Cuba  northward  was  the  ocean,  whose  northern  shore 
was  in  Canada, —  in  later  times  in  central  New  York. 
Here,  where  rise  the  cliffs  which  we  ignorantly  style 
"  everlasting,"  was  then  the  empire  of  the  ocean.  There, 
where  Neptune  now  holds  almost  undisputed  sway,  rose 
ranges  of  granitic  mountains,  which  have  melted  into  sedi- 
ment. Tennyson  has  happily  rendered  the  thought: 

"  There  rolls  the  deep  where  grew  the  tree. 
O  earth,  what  changes  hast  thou  seen  ! 
There  where  the  long  street  roars,  hath  been 
The  stillness  of  the  central  sea. 
"The  hills  are  shadows,  and  they  flow 

From  form  to  form,  and  nothing  stands; 
They  melt  like  mist,  the  solid  lands, 
Like  clouds  they  shape  themselves  and  go." 

In  Memoriam,  cxxi. 


140  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Turn  next  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  globe.  Southeast 
of  Africa  is  a  group  of  islands  which  Milne-Ed  wards  first 
designated  as  the  remnant  of  a  wasted  continent.  Mada- 
gascar, the  Isle  of  France,  the  Isle  of  Bourbon,  and  their 
associates,  seem  to  be  the  vestiges  of  an  obliterated  land, 
which  the  French  zoologist  proposed  to  call  the  Mascarene 
continent.  Lemuria  is  a  name  now  generally  employed 
to  designate  an  obliterated  land  which  embraced  the  Mas- 
carene continent,  and  stretched  eastward  over  a  portion 
of  the  site  of  the  Indian  ocean, —  perhaps  far  enough  east- 
ward to  embrace  the  East  India  Islands.  There,  at  least, 
seem  to  be  the  remnants  of  an  ancient  land  which  fulfilled 
its  destiny  before  the  broad  plains  and  stupendous  moun- 
tain chains  of  Asia  had  first  received  the  sunlight.  This 
lost  continent  is  named  Lemuria,  because  there  is  evidence 
that  it  was  the  original,  the  central  home  of  the  Lemurs, 
the  lowest  of  the  monkeys,  from  which  all  higher  types 
of  four-handed  animals  are  descended.  Lemuria  was  a 
central  land  for  animal  and  vegetable  life.  Here,  it  is 
fancied,  the  human  species  began  its  existence,  its  diverg- 
ing streams  extending  themselves  to  all  other  lands,  and 
developing  upon  them  the  various  races  of  men  as  we 
know  them.  In  Africa,  human  beings  became  Negroes 
and  Hottentots;  in  Australia,  Australians  and  Papuans;  in 
Hindustan,  Dravidians;  in  Eastern  Asia,  Mongoloids;  in 
central  and  western  Asia,  the  Mediterranean  race.  The 
theory  implies  that  the  progenitor  of  the  Mediterranean 
race  made  his  appearance  long,  very  long,  after  the  first 
human  being  appeared  in  Lemuria.  In  consequence  of 
these  speculations,  the  lost  continent  of  Lemuria  possesses 
a  high  degree  of  interest.  There  organization  first  reached 
its  culmination.  Thence,  as  a  center,  the  modern  tribes  of 


OBLITERATED    CONTINENTS.  141 

plants  and  highest  animals  have  diverged  into  other  parts 
of  the  world. 

But  let  us  return  now  to  America.  On  our  northwest 
coast  we  reach  a  point  within  39  miles  of  Asia.  Beh ring's 
strait,  which  separates  the  two  continents,  is  a  channel 
geologically  modern.  There  was  a  time  when  an  isthmus 
connected  the  lands  now  dissevered  by  a  strait.  America 
was  then,  like  Africa,  the  prolongation  of  Asia.  Over  this 
isthmus  traveled  the  Hairy  Mammoth  from  Siberia,  and 
left  his  teeth  and  bones  all  the  way  from  Asia  to  the  Gulf 
of  Mexico.  Over  this  isthmus  came  the  Mongoloid  man, 
who  settled  America,  and  developed  the  Mexican  and  Yu- 
catese  and  Peruvian  civilizations;  and,  in  other  regions, 
became  the  red  Indian,  the  Eskimo,  and  the  Aleut.  Yet 
we  have  evidences  of  a  wider  communication  between  Asia 
and  America.  The  whole  of  Beh  ring's  sea  is  formed  of 
shallow  water.  On  its  southern  boundary  we  find  a  pre- 
cipitous descent  into  the  bed  of  the  great  Pacific.  Here 
is  another  continental  stump.  Here  is  another  telegraphic 
plateau.  May  the  time  soon  arrive  when  human  enter- 
prise will  take  nature's  hint  and  reunite  the  mother  land 
with  our  own.  But  there  are  the  Aleutian  islands;  what 
means  that  wonderful  chain  arching  from  the  Alaskan 
point  across  the  north  Pacific  to  Japan?  Are  not  these 
the  vestiges  of  the  mountain  barrier  which  bounded  the 
ancient  continent  of  the  north?  What  are  these  volcanic 
islands  but  the  smoking  chimney-tops  of  another  Andes, 
sunken  in  the  watery  depths? 

These  are  the  relics  of  continents  which  have  disap- 
peared. Their  substance  has  entered  into  the  upbuilding 
of  other  lands,  as  the  pyramids  have  yielded  material  for 
the  construction  of  modern  cities.  There  rise  the  Hinia- 


142  SPAKKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

layas,  whose  very  bricks  bear  the  records  of  the  Leraurian 
age.  There  rise  the  Rocky  mountains,  enriched  by  the 
pillage  of  a  land  whose  misfortune  it  was  to  perish  be- 
fore human  pens  existed  to  celebrate  its  beauty.  There 
tower  the  Alleghanies,  only  as  a  majestic  dirt-heap  result- 
ing from  the  destruction  of  the  North  Atlantic  continent. 
There  rises  the  Andean  rampart  of  South  America,  reared 
for  the  benefit  of  the  human  age,  but  at  the  cost  of  a  pre- 
human land  of  verdure  and  beauty  whose  very  rags  we 
style  "  the  beautiful  Antilles." 

There  was  an  ancient  land  whose  name  has  long  sur- 
vived in  tradition  as  Atlantis.  It  has  been  lost  to  human 
eyes  and  to  human  knowledge  for  more  than  thirty-five 
centuries.  Plato,  in  the  Timcens  and  in  the  Critias,  has 
preserved  for  us  a  tradition  said  by  him  to  be  embodied 
in  a  lost  poem  by  Solon,  who  lived  two  hundred  years 
before  Plato,  in  the  sixth  century  before  Christ.  Solon 
pretended  to  have  learned  the  tradition  of  Atlantis  from 
the  Egyptian  priests,  from  whom  he  received  much  of  the 
learning  which  made  him  one  of  the  "  Seven  Wise  Men " 
of  Greece.  This  lost  land  was  situated  beyond  the  Pillars 
of  Hercules,  and  was  the  seat  of  a  civilization  far  supe- 
rior to  that  of  the  cave-dwellers  who  inhabited  Europe. 
It  possessed,  according  to  Plato,  cities  and  palaces  and 
temples.  It  supported  a  vast  army,  and,  nine  thousand 
years  before  Plato,  dispatched  a  military  expedition  for 
the  conquest  of  northern  Africa.  Only  Egypt  successfully 
resisted.  Plato's  date  of  9600  B.C.  must  be  taken  in  an 
oriental  sense.  The  Athenian  kings,  Cecrops  and  Erech- 
theus,  mentioned  as  contemporaries  of  this  campaign,  are 
known  to  have  flourished  1582  and  1409  B.C.  Theopompus 
tells  us  a  similar  story  respecting  the  people  of  Atlantis; 


OBLITERATED   CONTINENTS.  143 

but  it  varies  sufficiently  to  indicate  a  distinct  source  of 
information.  The  priests  of  the  ancient  inhabitants  of 
Gaul,  also,  known  as  Druids,  and  the  successors  of  the 
Cyclopes,  or  cave-dwellers,  possessed  traditions  collected  by 
Timagenes  and  pi-eserved  in  the  "  Fragments  of  Greek 
History,"  by  Ammienus  Marcellinus,  according  to  which 
that  country  was  invaded  by  a  numerous  people  who  came 
from  a  distant  island.  Marcellus  also  informs  us  that  there 
were  formerly  seven  islands  in  the  Atlantic  ocean  near  the 
European  continent,  which  we  now  recognize  as  the  Cana- 
ries. He  adds  that  the  inhabitants  of  these  islands  pre- 
served the  memory  of  a  much  larger  island,  Atlantis, 
which  for  a  long  time  exercised  dominion  over  all  the 
other  islands  of  the  Atlantic.  Other  historical  mention 
might  also  be  cited  tending  to  convince  us  that,  at  a  re- 
mote period,  a  large  island  existed  to  the  west  of  the  straits 
of  Gibraltar,  and  which,  by  some  convulsion  of  nature,  or 
by  the  slow  erosion  of  the  elements,  has  been  extinct  for 
3,500  years. 

Now  the  sounding-line  of  the  mariner  comes  again  to 
contribute  its  data  to  the  solution  of  the  puzzle  of  Atlantis, 
— "  the  fabled  Atlantis,"  as  we  please  to  call  it.  Some  of 
my  readers  will  recall  the  newspaper  announcement,  a  few 
years  since,  that  Commander  Gorringe,  of  the  U.  S.  sloop 
Gettysburg,  had  discovered  a  bank  in  the  Atlantic  ocean, 
thirty-two  fathoms  beneath  the  surface  of  the  water,  which 
was  covered  with  a  growth  of  living  pink  coral.  The  Get- 
tysburg Bank  is  less  than  a  hundred  miles  from  the  coast 
of  Portugal.  A  hundred  miles  west  of  this  is  the  Jose- 
phine Bank,  in  82  fathoms  of  water.  These  observations 
led  to  the  collation  of  soundings  by  other  government 
vessels.  In  January,  1873,  the  British  ship  Challenger 


144  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

sounded  over  the  same  and  contiguous  regions;  and  in 
July,  1874,  the  German  ship  Gazelle.  The  result  is  the 
discovery  of  another  continental  stump.  It  stretches  from 
the  Madeira  islands  to  the  coast  of  Portugal,  and  from  the 
Canaries  to  the  African  coast,  and  thence  to  Gibraltar. 
The  Canaries  and  the  islands  of  Madeira,  Desertas,  and 
Porto  Santo,  are  undoubtedly  the  relics  of  a  former  conti- 
nent. 

Behold  the  fable  of  Atlantis  converted  into  modern  fact! 
—  as  Schliemann  has  made  the  myths  of  Homer  solid  his- 
tory. This  sunken  land  lies  exactly  in  the  position  of  the 
ancient  Atlantis.  The  Guanches,  or  original  inhabitants 
of  the  Canaries,  were  the  remnants  of  the  nation  which 
sent  its  conquering  armies  against  the  Berbers  and  the 
Tyrrhenians  and  the  Gauls.  But  the  Guanches  had  lost 
all  memory  of  the  warlike  deeds  of  their  ancestors;  they 
were  even  ignorant  of  the  existence  of  the  continents  of 
Europe  and  Africa,  and  declared  to  the  discoverers  of  their 
islands,  "  God  placed  us  on  these  islands,  and  then  forsook 
and  forgot  us."  These  Atlantidean  people  were  known  in 
Europe  as  Iberians.  They  belonged  to  the  family  of  Ham- 
ites,  and  were  members  of  the  Mediterranean  race,  to  which 
we  belong. 

We  have  no  need  to  plunge  beneath  the  sea  and  explore 
for  fossil  continents  to  be  convinced  that  continents  have 
their  old  age.  The  records  of  wasted  areas  are  illuminated 
by  the  daily  sun.  The  Alleghanies  have  been  lowered  nine 
thousand  feet.  When,  at  the  close  of  the  Coal  Period,  the 
crust  of  the  earth  yielded  to  the  long-increasing  strain, 
huge  folds  were  uplifted  from  Vermont  to  Alabama;  and 
some  of  them  attained  an  altitude  of  15,000  feet.  Since 
that  fearful  throe  of  nature,  the  elements  have  been  busy 


OBLITERATED    CONTINENTS.  145 

taking  down  what  the  forces  of  upheaval  had  reared. 
Cubic  miles  of  the  Alleghanies  have  been  reduced  to  sand. 
The  proud  summits  of  the  mountains  lie  strewed  along 
the  humble  shores  of  the  Atlantic  States. 

There  stand  the  Catskills, —  a  pile  of  horizontal  leaves 
of  red  sandstone.  Abruptly,  on  either  slope,  the  rocky 
strata  terminate.  There  was  a  time  when  they  continued 
eastward  across  the  valley  of  the  Hudson.  The  wear  of 
chiliads  of  years  has  carted  the  formation  away.  There 
was  a  time  when  they  continued  westward  across  the  en- 
tire southern  border  of  the  state.  Those  cliffs  at  Panama, 
in  Chautauqua  county,  are  a  remnant  left  as  a  specimen 
of  the  formation,  for  the  edification  of  the  student  of  na- 
ture. The  huge  blocks  of  the  "  Rock  Cities  "  of  Alleghany 
and  Cattaraugus  counties  in  the  same  state  are  samples  left 
for  the  encouragement  of  geologists  in  those  regions. 
Other  specimen  rocks  of  the  Catskills  may  be  seen  in  places 
from  Delaware  county  westward.  It  is  fearful  to  contem- 
plate the  immensity  of  the  mechanical  power  which  could 
carry  away  the  surface  of  half  a  state  to  the  depth  of  a 
thousand  feet.  Here,  at  fifty  cents  a  cubic  yard,  would  be 
a  perennial  job  for  the  contractor  of  the  "  New  York  ring." 

Without  leaving  the  same  state,  let  me  take  the  reader 
to  the  ridge  road  which  runs  along  the  south  shore  of 
Lake  Ontario.  Here  the  broad  sheets  of  sandstone,  lime- 
stone and  shale  which  underlie  the  state  come  to  the  sur- 
face and  terminate  in  an  abrupt  cliff.  Beyond  is  Lake 
Ontario.  What  has  become  of  the  missing  continuation 
of  these  formations? 

Go  to  the  Niagara  gorge;  see  how  the  faithful  indus- 
try of  an  agent  "  as  weak  as  water "  can  accomplish  re- 
sults which  defy  the  capacity  of  human  engineering.  Here 


146  SPARKS    FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

was  the  Niagara,  as  busy  in  Mesozoic  time  as  to-day  —  as 
busy  in  Cenozoic  time  as  if  its  work  were  just  begun. 
There  is  the  living  gorge,  and  there  is  the  old  gorge, 
buried  in  its  grave.  Buried  with  materials  obtained  by 
tearing  to  pieces  some  other  land, —  buried  by  that  agency 
which  piled  up  these  hills  of  gravel  and  sand  which 
every  where  diversify  the  surface  of  our  northern  states; 
which  brought  these  acres  of  loose  deposits  from  the 
worn  and  wasted  sides  of  northern  hills ;  which  dipped 
its  flinty  plow-share  in  the  back  of  the  surface  rocks  of 
every  northern  state,  and  ripped  up  the  rubbish  which 
has  filled  many  an  old  river  channel,  and  plastered  over 
many  an  unsightly  scar  which  the  wear  of  time  had  cut 
in  the  face  of  the  land  ;  the  same  agency  which  scooped 
out  many  of  the  lake  basins,  and  scalped  the  hills  for  a 
booty  to  bestow  on  a  desolated  and  sorrow-stricken  coun- 
try. It  was  the  continental  glacier  which  did  this  work; 
and  the  desolated  country  was  a  land  that  had  been 
weathered  and  worn  by  the  erosions  of  unknown  cycles 
of  time, —  a  land  gashed  with  the  deep-cut  gorges  of  long- 
wearing  streams;  gullied  by  the  summer  torrents  of  many 
geologic  periods  ;  robbed  of  its  slender  soil  by  the  pro- 
longed denudations  of  the  surface;  a  worn-out  continental 
expanse, —  a  land  exhausted  in  the  service  of  the  beasts 
which  had  held  dominion  here  through  Cenozoic  time, — 
but  a  land  destined  to  receive  a  higher  being,  and  now 
renovated  by  such  thorough-working  agencies  for  his  re- 
ception. 

He  who  has  visited  the  flourishing  city  of  Nashville 
finds  it  situated  in  the  bottom  of  a  basin, —  a  great  natural 
basin,  scooped  in  the  rocks  of  central  Tennessee,  whose 
sides  are  layers  of  Lower  Silurian,  Upper  Silurian,  De- 


OBLITERATED   CONTINENTS.  147 

vonian  and  Carboniferous  rocks.  It  is  a  basin  a  hundred 
miles  in  diameter  and  a  thousand  feet  in  depth.  On  the 
east  and  the  west,  on  the  north  and  the  south,  the  same 
succession  of  rocks  rises  in  the  bounding  wall.  There 
can  be  no  error  in  my  conclusion  that  these  formations 
were  once  continuous  from  side  to  side.  Here,  then,  is 
another  example  of  the  wastage  of  the  land.  The  central 
mass  of  Tennessee  was  needed  to  build  up  the  Cretaceous 
and  Tertiary  formations  as  a  foundation  for  Alabama  and 
Mississippi. 

Still,  the  most  gigantic  examples  of  denudation  occur 
in  the  far  west.  The  canons  of  the  Colorado,  made  famous 
by  the  explorations  of  Newberry  and  Powell,  are  river- 
gorges  cut  six  thousand  feet  deep  through  the  rocky  forma- 
tions of  the  country.  All  the  lateral  affluents  of  the 
Colorado  have  dug  similar  trenches.  They  intersect  the 
surface  in  every  direction,  and  render  it  almost  impassa- 
ble. Of  these  gorges  Joaquin  Miller  writes: 

"  Down  in  a  canon  so  cleft  asunder 

By  saber  stroke  in  the  young  world's  prime 
It  looks  as  if  broken  by  bolts  of  thunder, 
Riven  and  driven  by  turbulent  time." 

Songs  of  the  Sierras. 

The  soils  are  washed  away;  the  naked  rock  bakes  in  the 
summer  sun,  and  no  cooling  shower  mitigates  the  fervor 
of  the  climate.  This  desert  of  the  continent  was  once  its 
garden.  The  ruin  has  been  wrought  by  the  same  agen- 
cies which  have  desolated  Palestine  till  the  white  bones 
of  the  hills  protrude  where  vineyards  once  blushed,  and 
olive  trees  cast  their  delicious  shade.  It  was  the  same 
agency  which  is  preying  to-day  upon  the  farms  of  New 
York  and  New  England,  and  is  planning  to  skin  the  soils 


148  SPAKKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

again  from  the  sterile  rocks,  and  leave  the  continent  as 
lean  as  before  the  "  reign  of  ice." 

In  that  western  country,  but  farther  north,  in  Wyo- 
ming, Major  Powell  has  discovered  an  enormous  fault  or 
break  through  the  rocks.  On  one  side  the  ponderous 
crust  of  the  earth  was  uplifted  25,000  feet, —  more  than 
four  miles.  The  reader  may  picture  a  vertical  wall  four 
miles  in  height.  He  may  imagine  himself  standing  at  its 
base  and  looking  upward.  Its  summit  is  dimmed  by  the 
smoke  of  distance.  Its  summit  is  half  the  time  immersed 
in  the  clouds.  He  need  not  imagine  such  a  cliff;  it  is 
not  there;  it  has  been  planed  down;  the  leveling  tendency 
of  nature  would  not  tolerate  such  inequalities.  Twenty- 
five  thousand  feet  of  solid  rocks  have  been  moved  away. 

These  are  examples  of  erosion  on  the  existing  conti- 
nents. I  could  point  to  many  others, —  to  the  dissolution 
of  the  hills  of  Texas,  and  their  distribution  over  the  plains 
nearer  the  Gulf-border;  to  the  wearing  away  of  the  east- 
ern coast  of  the  United  States  ;  to  the  isolated  hills  ris- 
ing 800  feet  along  the  valley  of  the  Amazons,  standing 
as  vestiges  of  an  extensive  formation,  which,  in  times 
geologically  recent,  has  covered  the  valley  ;  to  the  enor- 
mous erosion  of  the  continental  mass  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  mouths  of  the  Amazons  and  Para;  to  the  evidence 
that  the  North  Sea  has  been  dry  land  since  Tertiary 
time,  and  that  the  Thames  was  then  a  tributary  of  the 
Rhine  ;  to  the  proof  that  the  English  channel  has  been 
excavated  since  the  advent  of  man  in  Europe  ;  to  the 
Chinese  record  of  hydrographic  changes  in  China,  which 
have  shifted  the  positions  of  great  cities  hundreds  of  miles 
in  relation  to  the  sea. 

But  I  must  close  the  citation  of  these  evidences  of  the 


OBLITERATED   CONTINENTS.  149 

invasion  of  old  age  upon  the  beauty,  the  symmetry  and 
the  habitability  of  continents,  by  raising  the  question  of 
the  rate  of  erosion  of  their  surfaces.  If  we  look  about 
us,  we  discover  the  evidences  of  great  change  in  the  con- 
figuration of  the  hill-sides  within  a  few  years.  One  sum- 
mer's rains  plow  unsightly  gullies  in  our  cultivated  fields 
and  across  our  streets.  These  changes,  resulting  from 
local  transfers  of  earthy  material,  are  filling  lakes  and 
draining  marshes,  and  transforming  the  hills  ;  but  it  is 
only  the  transfer  of  the  continental  substance  to  the 
ocean's  bed  which  threatens  the  total  obliteration  of  con- 
tinents. The  sediment  carried  down  by  rivers  is  an  ex- 
ponent of  the  efficient  wastage,  and  the  rate  of  disap- 
pearance of  the  land.  The  sediments  of  the  Mississippi 
have  been  carefully  measured  by  Humphreys  and  Abbott, 
government  engineers.  The  river  discharges  annually 
sufficient  earthy  material  to  form  a  mass  one  mile  square 
and  268  feet  deep.  In  other  words,  it  is  sufficient  to 
extend  the  bar  at  the  mouth  of  the  river  338  feet  annu- 
ally. They  also  estimate  that  the  material  of  the  entire 
delta  of  the  Mississippi  may  have  been  deposited  within 
5,000  yeai-s.  These  quantities  of  sediment  are  vast,  and 
impress  us  with  a  conviction  that  the  solid  land  is  disap- 
pearing at  a  rate  which  is  almost  alarming.  But  these 
volumes  of  sediment  are  gathered  up  from  so  vast  an 
area  that  the  lowering  of  any  particular  square  mile  is 
insignificant  in  any  limited  time.  New  York  contributes 
something  to  this  deposit  through  the  Alleghany  and 
Ohio  rivers.  The  Rocky  Mountains  send  their  quota 
to  mingle  with  the  mud  floated  from  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania;  and  all  the  great  tributaries  of  this  great 
artery  of  the  continent  reach  out  their  myriad  fingers 


150  SPARKS  FROM  A  GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

over  the  farms  and  plantations,  the  hillsides  and  the 
mountain  gulches,  to  filch,  as  fast  as  they  can,  the  fleeing 
soil  from  the  possession  of  the  cultivator  and  owner. 

"The  Father  of  Waters 

Seizes  the  hills  in  his  hands,  and  drags  them  down  to  the  ocean, 
Deep  in  the  sands  to  bury  the  scattered  bones  of  the  mammoth." 

Eoanyeline. 

Professor  Croll  estimates  the  lowering  of  the  lands 
through  denudation  to  amount  to  one  foot  in  6,000  years. 
The  basin  of  the  Ganges,  however,  has  lowered  one  foot 
in  2,300  years.  On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Reade,  a  civil  en- 
gineer, estimates  that  England  is  lowered  by  denudation 
only  one  foot  in  13,000  years.  He  calculates  that  500,- 
000,000  of  years  must  have  elapsed  since  the  first  sedi- 
mentary rocks  were  laid  down  in  Europe, —  an  estimate 
evidently  absurd,  and  throwing  suspicion  over  his  other 
estimates,  since  Sir  William  Thompson  has  shown  from 
physical  principles  that  100,000,000  of  years  are  all  the 
time  allowable  since  the  beginning  of  incrustation  on  the 
earth.  Similarly,  Col.  Forshey  calculates  that  the  Missis- 
sippi river  would  fill  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  in  1,000,000  of 
years. 

All  calculations  are  merely  approximate.  I  am  per- 
suaded, however,  that  the  conclusions  of  Croll  and  Reade 
respecting  the  rate  of  denudation  are  quite  below  the 
truth  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  I  suspect  that  the  esti- 
mated age  of  the  Mississippi  delta  by  Humphreys  and 
Abbott  is  quite  too  small,  as  I  would  hold  that  the  opin- 
ion of  De  Lanoye,  who  assigns  6,350  years  as  the  age  of 
the  Nile  delta,  is  also  too  moderate  in  its  allowance  of 
time. 

From  this  outline  of  the  facts  we  perceive  that  conti- 


OBLITERATED   CONTINENTS.  151 

nents  are  wearing  out.  Each  continental  ai'ea  abides  its 
time,  and  gradually  yields  to  the  destructive  agencies 
which  are  always  at  work.  Each  period  of  the  world's 
history  has  had  its  continental  surfaces  for  the  accommo- 
dation of  its  appropriate  populations.  When  the  period 
has  reached  its  close,  the  continents  have  been  exhausted, 
and  renovating  agencies  have  been  summoned  to  restore 
their  pristine  condition.  When  impaired  beyond  recu- 
peration, the  powers  of  nature  have  been  invoked  for  the 
uplift  and  utilization  of  new  continental  masses,  which 
through  ages  had  been  building  under  water,  out  of  the 
stolen  materials  of  older  lands.  So  our  own  farms  and 
mountains  will  ultimately  disappear,  and  the  footing  of 
the  human  race  will  vanish  beneath  their  feet.  A  wasted 
continent  and  a  wasted  world  must  cease  to  retain  its 
organic  populations.  Thus  we  see  a  promise  of  release 
of  our  race  from  the  planet  to  which  it  is  now  confined. 


A  GRASP  OF  GEOLOGIC  TIME. 


~j  TOW  shall  the  mind  obtain  relief  from  the  oppressive 
-* — *-  idea  of  eternity  which  confronts  it  on  every  page  of 
geologic  history? 

We  seize  upon  a  thread  of  relations,  and  follow  it  back 
through  the  whirl  of  terrestrial  revolutions  till  the  head 
swims  and  the  vision  grows  dim,  and  the  symbols  of  dura- 
tion cease  to  excite  any  adequate  emotions, —  as  when  words 
of  eloquence  fall  upon  ears  of  lead.  We  lift  the  veil  which 
conceals  the  future,  and  cast  our  glances  down  the  vistas 
of  coming  time;  but  again  our  thought  is  paralyzed,  and  we 
sink  into  the  depths  of  eternity  as  stupidly  as  the  reptile 
withering  in  his  rocky  crevice. 

Oh,  for  an  expanse  of  thought  that  shall  permit  us  to 
seize  upon  the  years  of  God!  This  world  of  ours,  we  have 
been  told,  instead  of  being  the  result  of  creative  energy 
put  forth  six  thousand  years  ago,  is  the  product  of  revolu- 
tions that  have  exhausted  millions  of  years  in  their  con- 
summation. The  twenty  or  thirty  populations  which  have 
passed  like  shadows  over  the  surface  of  our  planet,  have 
each  had  a  duration  at  least  equal  to  that  of  the  existing 
population,  whose  beginning  stretches  back  into  the  fogs 
of  mystery  and  myth.  When  imagination  has  wandered 
back  to  the  beginning  of  this  succession  of  life,  it  finds 
itself  at  the  conclusion  of  an  older  history,  during  which 
the  powers  of  fire  and  water  were  struggling  with  each 
other  for  supremacy  upon  the  globe.  Still  back  of  this 


A   GKASP  OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  153 

elemental  contest  we  behold  the  scenes  of  the  undisputed 
reign  of  fire,  when  the  terrestrial  globe  was  a  self-lumi- 
nous orb.  And  yet  deeper  in  the  infinitudes  of  the  past  we 
are  forced  to  contemplate  the  matter  of  the  earth  and  of  all 
her  sister  planets  a  blended  blaze  of  ethereal  flame.  While 
we  stand  paralyzed  and  wondering  in  the  presence  of  such 
unmeasured  flights  of  time,  the  geologist,  the  astronomer 
and  the  physicist  open  their  mouths  in  unison  to  assure  us 
that,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  this  mass  of  matter 
has  been  wasting  its  heat  in  infinite  space  as  fast  as  the 
wings  of  ether  could  bear  it  away;  and  that  every  phe- 
nomenon of  terrestrial  history,  from  primordial  light  to 
the  last  spring  tempests,  has  been  only  a  consequent  or  a 
concomitant  of  this  progressive  cooling.  And  when  we  ask 
how  long  the  duration  of  this  work,  they  reply  that  the 
earth  has  cooled  only  one- fourteenth  of  a  degree  in  the 
last  twenty-five  centuries. 

Even  when  we  narrow  our  observations  down  to  the 
compass  of  the  closing  events  of  terrestrial  history,  we 
stand  amazed  before  the  revelation  of  eternity.  The  reno- 
vation of  the  continental  surface  by  the  great  glacier,  and 
the  floods  which  attended  upon  its  dissolution,  marked  the 
last  great  revolution  which  passed  over  the  surface  of  the 
land.  Yet  of  all  its  vicissitudes,  nothing  has  been  pre- 
served to  us  by  the  history  or  traditions  of  our  race.  It 
lies  back  in  the  unmeasured  realm  of  the  geologic  aeons. 
Since  the  disappearance  of  the  glacier,  geological  results 
which,  to  the  eye  of  a  generation,  seem  stationary,  have 
been  accumulated  in  aggregates  of  stupendous  magnitude. 
The  gorge  of  Niagara,  seven  miles  long,  one  thousand  feet 
broad,  and  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  deep,  is  thought  by 
some  geologists  to  have  been  worn  out  by  an  agency  which, 


154  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

save  in  extraordinaiy  cases,  demands  a  century  to  render  its 
results  pei-ceptible.  Even  if  we  only  claim  that  portion  of 
the  gorge  below  the  whirlpool  as  the  record  of  post-glacial 
work,  and  then  reflect  upon  the  almost  stationary  position 
of  the  falls  since  first  observed  by  civilized  man,  we  re- 
ceive a  profound  impression  of  the  length  of  the  passing 
geological  period.  Much  of  the  peninsula  of  Florida,  within 
times  geologically  modern,  has  been  undergrown  by  a  coral 
reef  and  added  to  the  domain  of  the  land.  The  delta  of 
the  Mississippi  has  taken  the  place  of  a  broad  estuary  which 
penetrated  deep  into  the  heart  of  the  land.  There  are 
those  who  would  have  us  believe  that  even  the  monuments 
of  human  activity  date  back  a  thousand  centuries,  while 
the  decline  of  the  continental  glacier,  the  extinction  of  the 
last  fauna,  the  wastage  of  the  pre-glacial  surface  of  North 
America, —  these  are  events  which  stretch  aeons  upon  aeons 
into  the  remoter  past. 

Now  let  us  gaze  the  ages  steadily  in  the  face.  Let  us 
see  if  it  be  impossible  to  take  in  the  compass  of  a  geological 
period.  Let  us  seek  for  a  unit  of  measure  with  which  we 
may  gauge  the  cycles  of  terrestrial  evolutions.  Let  us 
grope  for  a  parallactic  base-line  of  known  dimensions,  from 
which  we  may  take  the  bearings  of  events  gleaming  down 
upon  us  from  primeval  time. 

Not  all  great  geologic  events  date  back  to  a  high  antiq- 
uity. Here  has  been  the  first  error  in  our  premises.  Man 
did  not  come  upon  a  world  in  which  histoiy  had  closed. 
He  came  in  the  midst  of  the  progress  of  events.  Man  him- 
self was  one  in  the  series  of  events.  Great  vicissitudes  pre- 
ceded his  coming;  great  vicissitudes  have  even  followed 
his  coming.  We  have  thought  that  when  man  appeared, 
the  work  of  geologic  agencies  had  been  completed,  and 


A   GRASP  OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  155 

that  his  race  was  destined  to  contemplate  things  in  a  state 
of  fixity,  or  moving  in  ever- repeated  cycles;  hence  every 
momentous  revolution  in  terrestrial  affairs  of  which  we 
trace  the  records  must  have  antedated  the  advent  of  man 
into  Europe  and  Asia, —  must  have  antedated  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  man  on  the  earth.  It  must  stretch  back  into 
a  remote  antiquity.  When,  therefore,  we  discovered,  as 
we  must  discover,  that  man  had  been  the  witness  of  vast 
geologic  changes,  we  first,  as  by  an  impulse,  declared  that 
man's  existence  mounts  also  to  an  antiquity  measured  by 
scores  of  thousands  of  years.* 

We  have  learned  another  lesson  in  the  primer  of  science. 
The  great  tide  of  events  which  we  have  witnessed  sweeping 
down  through  the  ages  of  palaeozoic  and  later  geologic 
time  is  now  sweeping  past  our  very  doors.  It  is  the  same 
tide :  we  ourselves  are  borne  upon  its  bosom.  In  our  brief 
day  we  may  note  a  few  of  the  vicissitudes  which  swell  and 
perpetuate  the  current. 

What  man  of  adult  years  does  not  know  some  reedy 
bog  which  in  his  boyhood  was  a  skating  pond?  Who  that 
has  attained  the  years  of  grandsire  has  not  seen  meadow- 
land  in  spots  which  he  once  knew  as  reedy  bog?  The  al- 
luvial meadow  has  grown  from  the  reeking  mai*sh;  the 
marsh  emerged  from  the  shallow  lake-bottom  by  the  slow 
filling  of  the  depression.  The  whole  work  is  one  within 
the  grasp  of  human  comprehension.  But  the  little  lake 
was  a  vestige  of  the  last  inundation  of  the  ocean,  which 
followed  the  glacial  visitation.  So  the  great  glacier  almost 
looms  into  view. 

The  traditions  of  the  Greeks  preserved  the  memory  of 
an  ancient  submergence  of  the  Scythian  plains.  The  vast 

*  Compare  the  author's  Preadamites,  ch.  xxvii. 


156  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

steppes  of  Russia  and  Siberia,  like  the  prairies  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  were  once  the  bottom  of  comparatively 
shallow  seas  or  lakes.  The  tundras  of  northern  Siberia 
appear  to  have  been  inundated  since  the  period  of  gen- 
eral glaciation.  This  is  also  true  of  the  polders  along 
the  coast  of  the  German  Ocean.  The  Magyar  puszta  and 
the  regions  of  the  tchornosjom  or  black  earth  of  Russia 
seem  to  have  been  produced  by  a  former  extension  of  the 
waters  of  the  Black  Sea.  The  black  earth  or  prairie  re- 
gion of  southern  Russia  covers  an  area  twice  the  size  of 
France.  It  appears  that  an  obstructed  outlet  of  the  Black 
Sea  dammed  the  waters  to  such  an  altitude  that  the  Black 
and  Caspian  and  Aral  were  one, —  a  greater  Mediterra- 
nean spreading  over  the  most  fertile  areas  of  the  Orient, 
—  which  were  thus  preparing,  as  the  Amei'ican  prairies 
were  at  the  same  time  preparing,  to  become  the  garden 
of  the  continent  to  which  they  belong.  This  lacustrine 
region  is  the  ancient  Lectonia.  In  the  progress  of  events 
an  earthquake-throe  shivered  the  barriers  of  the  Thracian 
Bosphorus,  and  the  Oriental  prairie-land  was  drained. 
The  fable  of  the  floating  Symplegades  perpetuates  the 
memory  of  the  relative  transpositions  of  land  and  water. 
History  preserves  but  an  imperfect  record  of  this  gi-eat 
hydrographic  revolution.  The  story  which  tradition  bore 
down  to  the  reach  of  history  had  grown  vague  and  de- 
fective. But  tradition,  which  ever  delights  to  reproduce 
the  marvels  of  the  past,  not  only  retained  its  hold  upon 
the  great  fact,  but  yielded  to  history  some  data  which 
have  found  a  permanent  record.  Herodotus,  the  "  father 
of  history,"  has  supplied  such  geographical  details  as 
enable  us  to  trace  the  limits  of  land  and  water  about 
the  northern  shores  of  the  Black  Sea,  as  they  existed  sev- 


A    GRASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  157 

eral  centuries  before  our  era.  Any  one  who  will  take 
the  trouble  to  consult  Rawlinson's  Herodotus  will  find  a 
map  of  the  Scythian  plains  in  which  the  Sea  of  Azof  pos- 
sesses still  an  extent  approaching  in  area  even  that  of 
the  Euxine  itself.  History  has  not  brought  us  equally 
explicit  tidings  of  the  conti-action  of  the  Caspian  and  Aral 
Seas;  but  geological  and  topographical  evidences  proclaim 
with  unmistakable  clearness  the  recent  retreat  of  the 
Caspian  on  the  north,  over  a  distance  of  240  miles  of 
country  depressed  below  the  present  sea-level,  and  many 
hundreds  of  miles  of  territory  but  little  elevated  above 
it.  Indeed  the  opinion  prevails  that  in  times  geologically 
recent  the  Caspian  was  joined  to  the  White  Sea  and  the 
Sea  of  Obi,  and  the  Aral  formed  part  of  the  same  body 
of  water.  When  the  Caspian  flooded  the  valley  of  the 
Volga  the  Euxine  filled  the  valleys  of  the  Don  and 
Dnieper.  The  plains  between  these  two  rivers  were  then 
sea-bottom  as  well  as  the  Ponto-Caspian  flats  north  of  the 
Caucasus  and  stretching  from  the  Sea  of  Azof  and  the 
Don  to  the  Caspian  Sea.  Thus,  in  times  comparatively 
modern,  a  vast  region  stretching  from  Turkestan  to  the 
Danube  and  from  the  Elburz  Mountains  to  the  White 
Sea  and  the  Sea  of  Obi  has  constituted  a  part  of  the 
water-surface  of  the  earth.  Here  has  been  a  geological 
emergence  of  almost  half  a  continent,  the  later  stages  of 
which  mankind  stood  by  to  witness,  and  the  recollection 
of  which  lingered  in  tradition  and  then  in  history  till 
science  has  arisen  to  bring  full  confirmation.* 

There  ai-e  indications  not  a  few  that  the  delta  of  the 

*  See  Von  Baer,  Kaspische  Studien,  and  Wood,  The  Shores  of  Lake  Ara>, 
1876;  Sir  R.  Murchison  and  Sir  H.  Rawlinson,  Jour.  Koy.  Geogr.  Soc.,  1867; 
Roesler,  Die  Aralseefrage,  1873. 


158  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

Nile  and  a  greater  part  of  the  desert  of  Sahara  have 
been  the  bed  of  the  Mediterranean  within  the  human 
epoch.  Aristotle  refers  to  the  growth  of  the  Nilotic  delta 
in  his  own  times  ;  and  Strato  and  Strabo  recognize  the 
probability  that  it  had  been  covered,  in  times  not  very 
remote,  by  the  waters  of  the  Mediterranean.  Herodotus 
says  that  in  the  time  of  Menes  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
was  a  swamp  below  Thebes,  and  he  expresses  the  opinion 
that  "  the  country  above  Memphis  seems  formerly  to  have 
been  an  arm  of  the  sea."  All  this  is  sustained  by  the 
salinity  of  the  water  still  retained  in  the  deeper  deposits 
of  the  delta.  Not  only  the  delta  but  extensive  sand-cov- 
ered regions  to  the  west  are  generally  admitted  to  have 
been  in  comparatively  modern  times  the  bed  of  the  sea. 
When  recently  drained,  many  parts  of  this  ancient  sea- 
bottom  probably  presented,  like  ancient  Lectonia  and  the 
prairies  of  Illinois,  a  soil  of  high  fertility,  which  sustained 
human  populations  during  the  lifetime  of  a  nation;  but, 
like  other  continental  surfaces  which  have  fulfilled  their 
part  in  the  sustentation  of  a  race,  the  Egyptian  and 
Libyan  plains  have  deteriorated  to  a  limit  beneath  the 
needs  of  civilization,  and  civilization  has  sought  out  fresher 
areas  on  which  to  continue  its  march. 

The  traditions  of  every  nation  preserve  the  memory  of 
a  widespread  and  destructive  deluge.  One  such  deluge 
occurred  in  the  Orient,  and  swept  off  the  contemporary 
populations.  Our  biblical  records  assert  that  "  the  waters 
prevailed  upon  the  earth  one  hundred  and  fifty  days," 
that  they  covered  elevated  mountains,  and  that  all  living 
creatures  in  the  country  (hddrets,  the  whole  region)  per- 
ished. Berosus,  the  Chaldee  historian,  speaks  of  a  general 
deluge  in  the  time  of  Xithuthrus;  and  this  testimony  is 


A    GRASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  159 

confirmed  by  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  the  Izdubar 
legends,  as  deciphered  by  the  late  George  Smith, —  a  story 
which  must  have  had  a  common  origin  with  the  biblical 
narrative.  The  sacred  books  of  the  Hindoos  preserve  the 
record  of  a  great  deluge  which  occurred  about  the  time 
of  the  Mosaic  flood.  Among  the  Chinese,  also,  are  records 
of  one  or  more  floods.  Confucius  represents  the  Emperor 
Jas  as  exercising  his  authority  or  power  in  effecting  the 
retreat  of  a  deluge  which  completely  inundated  the  plains 
and  lesser  hills,  and  washed  the  feet  of  the  highest  moun- 
tains. We  have  no  assurance  that  this  was  the  same 
deluge  which  exists  in  the  mythology  of  Greece,  but  it 
may  have  been.  Thus  Ovid,  in  his  beautiful  account  of 
the  Deluge  of  Deucalion,  says: 

"  Jarnque  mare  et  tellus  nulhun  discrimen  habebant; 
Omnia  pontus  erant.    Deerant  quoque  littora,  ponto."* 

Even  the  Mosaic  narrative  of  Noah,  and  the  Chaldean 
story  of  Xithuthrus,  reappear  in  the  Metamorphoses: 

"Jupiter,  ut  liquidis  stagnaque  paludibus  orbem, 
Et  superesse  videt  de  tot  modo  millibus  unum, 
Et  superesse  videt  de  tot  modo  millibus  unam, 
Innocuos  arnbos,  cultores  nuuiinis  ainbos, 
Nubila  disjecit."f 

This  deluge  was  occasioned  by  the  "  opening  of  the 
windows  of  heaven,"  and  the  breaking  up  of  the  "  foun- 
tains of  the  great  deep,"  or,  in  the  highly  poetical  words 
of  the  Metamorphoses,  Neptune,  coming  to  the  aid  of  Jove, 

*Here  is  a  translation  for  the  unclassical  reader:  "Now  sea  and  land  pre- 
sented no  distinction  All  places  were  sea;  nor  had  the  sea  anywhere  a  shore." 

t "  Jupiter,  when  he  sees  the  world  covered  with  stagnant  pools,  and  sees  one 
man  surviving  of  eo  many  thousands,  and  one  woman  surviving  of  so  many  thou- 
sands, both  sinless,  both  worshipers  of  divinity,  disperses  the  clouds," 


160  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

summoned  the  rivers  to  his  palace,  and  commanded  them 
to  pour  forth  their  strength. 

"  Hi  redeunt,  ac  fontibus  ora  relaxant, 
Et  defra:-nato  volvuntur  in  aequora  cursu. 
Ipse  triclente  suo  terrain  percussit ;  et  ilia 
Intremuit,  motuque  sinus  patefecit  aquarum."* 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  destructive  inundation, 
general  throughout  the  East,  occurred  in  the  early  history 
of  the  Mediterranean  race.  Neither  is  it  to  be  doubted 
that  well-known  natural  causes  have  been  adequate  to 
the  production  of  such  an  inundation.  As  the  upheaval 
of  some  portion  of  the  Alps,  in  the  period  just  before  the 
advent  of  man,  sent  a  destructive  inundation  over  a  large 
part  of  Europe,  so  the  uprising  of  some  portion  of  the 
mountains  of  the  Caucasus f  may  have  been  accompanied 
by  the  emission  of  such  quantities  of  watery  vapor  as  by 
condensation  to  deluge  half  a  continent.  Such  a  visita- 
tion, by  whatever  natural  cause  effected,  has  been  wit- 
nessed, if  we  may  trust  abundant  traditional  and  semi- 
historical  evidence,  by  the  early  representatives  of  our 
race  in  western  Asia. 

The  hydrographic  changes  which  have  transpired  in 
northern  China  are  among  the  most  extensive  and  re- 
markable that"  have  been  witnessed  by  man.  On  all  except 
the  most  recent  maps  of  China,  the  Hoang  Ho,  or  Yellow 
River,  is  represented  as  having  its  outlet  in  the  Yellow 
Sea,  near  the  city  of  Hwaingan,  in  latitude  34°.  During 
the  Taiping  rebellion,  a  few  years  since,  the  course  of  this 

*"They  return  and  open  the  mouths  of  their  fountains,  and  roll  in  a  torrent 
unrestricted  to  the  sea.  Himself,  with  his  trident,  strikes  the  earth;  it  trembles, 
and  by  the  motion  opens  the  secret  place  of  the  waters." 

t  According  to  Dr  Abich,  the  upheaval  of  all  the  higher  portion  of  the  chain 
has  involved  strata  of  Tertiary  age. 


A    GRASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  161 

mighty  river  was  changed  from  the  neighborhood  of  Kai- 
fung,  three  hundred  miles  above  its  mouth,  and  a  new 
channel  was  established,  leading  into  the  Gulf  of  Pe-chili, 
three  hundred  and  eighty  miles  in  a  straight  line  north- 
west of  its  old  outlet.  But  this  channel  has  not  been 
established  without  the  most  terrible  inundations  of  the 
low  and  level  delta  of  the  Hoang  Ho.  This  delta  covers 
all  the  northeastern  portion  of  China  south  of  the  "  Great 
Wall"  and  north  of  Hangchau  and  Honan. 

Nor  has  this  been  the  first  nor  the  greatest  occasion 
when  this  unbridled  and  destructive  river,  fed  by  the 
melting  snows  of  the  Mongolian  plateaus,  has  deserted 
its  bed  and  sought  out  new  outlets  to  the  sea.  Accord- 
ing to  the  oldest  Chinese  records,  the  Hoang  Ho,  previous 
to  the  time  of  the  "  Great  Yu,"  which  was  about  2,200 
years  before  Christ,  pursued  a  totally  different  course  from 
the  place  of  its  crossing  the  northern  boundary  of  China 
into  Mongolia.  At  this  place  it  emptied  into  a  vast  lake 
half  the  size  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  which,  in  turn,  connected 
eastwardly  with  another  vast  lake,  stretching  to  Peking, 
from  which  the  drainage  found  an  outlet  into  the  north- 
western angle  of  the  Gulf  of  Pe-chili,  near  Tien-tsin.  The 
"  Great  Yu  "  —  whether  this  be  the  name  of  a  monarch  or 
the  personification  of  a  great  nation  —  turned  the  river 
southward  four  hundred  miles,  between  the  provinces  of 
Shensi  and  Shansi,  to  Fuchau,  whence  he  conducted  it 
eastward  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  to  Kaifung. 
At  Kaifung  the  river  divided,  one  main  outlet  stretching 
east-southeast  to  the  Yellow  Sea,  and  several  others  wind- 
ing toward  the  northeast  and  debouching  in  the  Gulf  of 
Pe-chili.  The  area  included  between  the  new  and  the  old 
channels  was  not  less  than  280,000  square  miles,  or  about 
11 


162  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

equal  to  all  the  New  England  and  Middle  States  of  our 
Union. 

Since  the  time  of  Yu,  the  Hoang  Ho  has  made  exten- 
sive changes  in  its  bed  not  less  than  eight  times  previously 
to  the  last  change.  The  great  delta  has  been  cut  in  every 
direction.  Sometimes  the  exclusive  outlet  of  the  river 
has  been  by  one  or  more  mouths  in  the  Gulf  of  Pe-chili; 
at  others  it  has  been  exclusively  in  the  Yellow  Sea;  and 
at  still  others  the  river  has  had  outlets  in  both  directions. 
The  Yang-tse  has  participated  to  some  extent  in  these 
wanderings.  In  the  meantime  the  Yellow  Sea  and  the 
Gulf  of  Pe-chili  have  been  filling  up  wi.th  sediments.  In 
many  places  the  shore-line  has  traveled  one  hundred  feet 
per  year  for  the  last  two  thousand  years.  In  other  places 
the  change  is  not  over  thirty  feet  per  year.  A  recent 
writer  calculates  that  the  sediments  of  the  three  great 
rivers  of  China  would  fill  the  Yellow  Sea  and  the  Gulfs 
of  Pe-chili  and  Lian  Tung  in  24,000  years.* 

The  increase  of  land  is  probably  in  part  due  to  a  slow 
rising  of  the  eastern  border  of  the  continent.  Such  a  ris- 
ing is  felt  at  numerous  places.  The  island  of  Tsung-Ming 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Yang-tse,  which  now  has  a  population 
of  half  a  million,  did  not  exist  in  the  fourteenth  century. 
Beaches  of  recent  shells  are  seen  in  the  south  of  China, 
many  feet  above  the  present  sea-level.  Similar  beaches 
are  found  on  the  Japanese  islands  from  fifty  to  one  thou- 
sand feet  above  the  sea.  On  the  island  of  Formosa,  such 
beaches  occur  at  an  elevation  of  1,100  feet.  A  Dutch  fort, 
built  in  1634,  upon  an  island  detached  from  Formosa,  is 
now  some  distance  inland,  and  stands  in  the  center  of  a 
large  city. 

*  H.  B.  Guppy,  Nature,  xxii,  448.  Mr.  A.  Woeikoff  thinks  this  period  should 
be  extended  to  28,000  years.  (Nature,  xxiii,  9.) 


A   GKASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  163 

Such  are  indications  of  a  gradual  emergence  of  the  east- 
ern border  of  the  continent,  producing  a  very  considerable 
extension  of  the  land.  The  growth  of  the  land  is,  however, 
only  approaching  a  condition  which  has  heretofore  existed. 
The  records  and  traditions  of  the  Chinese  carry  us  back  to 
a  time  when  Corea  was  continuous  westwardly  with  the 
mainland.  The  Gulf  of  Pe-chili  and  the  Yellow  Sea  had 
no  existence.  The  great  delta-plain  extended  to  the  Japa- 
nese islands.  Indeed,  the  hydrographic  maps  of  the  Chi- 
nese waters  demonstrate  that  the  continental  surface  ex- 
tends strictly  to  the  submerged  ridge  running  from  Nipon 
through  the  Liu-Kiu  islands  to  Formosa.  Here  is  the 
proper  rim  of  the  basin  of  the  Pacific.  Traditions  exist 
of  the  former  extension  of  the  continent  far  toward  this 
limit.  Here,  then,  is  an  area  equal  to  the  half  of  Europe, 
over  which  the  forefathers  of  the  Chinese  extended  their 
migrations,  on  which  they  built  cities  and  founded  dynas- 
ties, and  which  mankind  have  lived  to  see  sunken  beneath 
the  Pacific,  and  the  memory  of  which  had  been  almost  for- 
gotten.* 

The  geological  history  of  eastern  Asia  diverts  our  at- 
tention to  great  hydrographic  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  region  southeast  of  China,  and  not  improbably 
since  man  has  been  an  occupant  of  the  earth.  Southeast 
of  Asia  lies  the  great  Malay  Archipelago.  It  includes  the 
great  islands  of  Sumatra,  Borneo,  Celebes,  the  Philippines 
and  New  Guinea.  Still  farther  southeast  is  the  continent 
of  Australia.  The  numberless  islands  of  this  archipelago 

*  Accessible  information  on  geographical  and  hydrographical  changes  in 
China  is  contained  in  Professor  R.  Pumpelly's  memoir  in  the  Smithsonian 
Contributions  to  Knowledge,  xv,  art.  iv;  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  ii,  xlv,  219;  and  in 
papers  by  A.  S.  Bickmore,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  xlv,  209,  and  Martin,  Amer.  Jour. 
Set.,  xlvii,  100.  See,  also,  Von  Richthofen,  China,  12, 85-87. 


164  SPAKKS   FEOM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

are  mostly  but  the  higher  eminences  of  an  ancient  prolon- 
gation of  the  Asiatic  continent  that  has  been  sunken  by 
volcanic  action  or  wasted  by  the  agencies  of  erosion. 
Southeast  of  the  Indo-Chinese  peninsula  there  are  no 
soundings  until  we  reach  the  line  connecting  Celebes  with 
Java.  This  is  a  distance  of  twelve  hundred  miles  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Cambodia  river.  The  width  of  these 
shallow  soundings  is  seven  hundred  miles.  From  Java  the 
zone  of  shallow  soundings  extends  north-northeast  to  a 
point  beyond  Luzon,  a  distance  of  about  two  thousand 
miles.  Now,  all  around  through  Sumatra  and  Java  to 
Mindinao  and  the  Philippines  is  a  chain  of  active  and  ex- 
tinct volcanoes  from  whose  craters  incalculable  volumes 
of  molten  matter  have  been  ejected,  even  during  the  his- 
toric period  of  our  race.  The  island  of  Java  alone  is  the 
site  of  forty-seven  of  these  volcanic  vents.  To  supply  erup- 
tions of  such  magnitude  has  undermined  the  solid  crust 
throughout  all  the  neighboring  region.  The  southern 
angle  of  the  continent  has  sunken  till  its  valleys  lie  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  fathoms  below  the  level  of  the  sea, 
while  its  mountains  stand  even  up  to  the  chin  in  water. 
The  sunken  area  is  four  thousand  miles  in  length  from 
east  to  west,  and  thirteen  hundred  in  breadth  from  north 
to  south. 

This  subsidence,  accelerated  by  atmospheric  and  oceanic 
erosions,  has  taken  place  during  the  modern  epoch  of  geo- 
logical history.  Not  only  birds  and  insects,  but  reptiles 
and  ponderous  quadrupeds,  that  once  had  liberty  to  range 
over  the  continental  surface,  are  now  restricted  to  isolated 
islands,  whose  limits  are  even  yet  becoming  narrower. 
The  eastern  portion  of  the  Malay  archipelago,  however, 
is  separated  from  the  western  by  a  deep  ocean  channel. 


A   GRASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  165 

New  Guinea,  Ceram  and  Timor  present  the  same  alliances 
with  Australia  as  the  other  islands  do  with  Asia.  As  the 
species  of  the  Indo-Malayan  archipelago  exhibit  affinities 
which  reveal  their  derivation  from  types  occupying  the 
Asiatic  shore,  so  those  of  the  Austro-Malayan  archipelago 
declare  their  descent  from  Australian  progenitors.  Even 
the  human  races  reveal  the  same  affinities  and  bespeak  the 
same  migrations.  We  are  led  thus  to  the  following  con- 
clusion. 

At  some  period  in  the  history  of  our  species,  after  the 
brown  stock  of  races  had  become  differentiated  from  the 
black,  the  older  black  race  or  races  held  possession  of  the 
Austi'alian  continent  in  all  its  former  extent.  At  the  same 
time  the  brown  Malayan  Mongoloid  wandered  down  the 
Asiatic  peninsula  as  far  as  Borneo,  and  found  its  further 
progress  intercepted  by  the  deep  sea  dissevering  the  two 
continents.  Each  race  continued  to  occupy  its  own  conti- 
nent, and  as  the  ocean  gradually  encroached,  held  posses- 
sion of  the  emergent  elevations,  till  science  opened  its  eyes 
upon  questions  of  geology  and  race  and  distribution,  and 
reproduced  the  vicissitudes  of  a  continental  history  which 
man,  though  a  spectator  of  the  whole,  had  long  since  for- 
gotten. 

This  account  undoubtedly  holds  true  for  the  central 
masses  of  faunas  and  races.  But  no  human  race  has  been 
completely  barred  by  the  intervention  of  channels,  however 
deep  or  broad.  We  find  accordingly  that  representatives 
of  the  black  stock  of  men  found  their  way  to  the  islands 
of  the  Indo-Malayan  archipelago,  and  survive,  crowded 
and  dominated  by  the  Malays  to  this  day.  These  are  the 
Aeta  of  the  Philippine  islands.  To  these  we  should  add  the 
Mincopies  of  the  Andaman  islands.  In  the  opposite  direc- 


166  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

tion  the  brown  stock  survives  in  the  natives  of  Madagascar. 
The  conjecture  is  admissible  that  their  ancestors  mi- 
grated from  the  Malayan  peninsula  over  a  land  connection 
then  existing.  The  evidences  convince  us  that  the  move- 
ment was  in  this  direction,  and  do  not  permit  us  to  assume 
that  the  Malagasies  are  survivals  of  the  primitive  Malayan 
stock. 

•  Mankind  have  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  grand  phe- 
nomena of  terrestrial  revolutions.  There  was  a  time 
when  the  Orient  was  united  to  the  Occident  by  an  isth- 
mus which  then  held  the  place  of  Behring's  Strait.  This 
may  have  been  at  the  time  when  the  bottom  of  the  Yel- 
low Sea  was  dry  land.  Then  the  Siberian  Mammoth 
wandered  into  North  America.  Then  probably  the  ances- 
tors of  the  Aztecs  made  the  discover}'  of  the  continent, 
and  in  the  lapse  of  ages  wandered  down  the  whole  length 
of  the  coast  to  Cape  Horn.  The  vicissitudes  of  ages 
brought  extinction  to  the  mammoth,  but  the  American 
Indian  perpetuates  his  memory  in  tradition. 

Since  man  first  appeared  in  Europe  the  North  Sea  has 
been  dry  land,  and  Great  Britain  has  been  joined  to  the 
continent  twice  or  more.  According  to  Professor  James 
Geikie's  interpretation  of  the  facts,  man  was  present  be- 
fore the  beginning  of  continental  glaciation,  and  Great 
Britain  was  then  a  part  of  the  continent.  Then  followed 
a  subsidence  of  1,200  or  1,300  feet,  which  isolated  Great 
Britain  from  the  continent  as  at  present.  With  a  reele- 
vation  general  glaciation  of  all  the  northern  and  middle 
portions  of  Europe  came  on.  Then  another  subsidence 
occurred,  which  in  turn  was  followed  by  an  elevation  which 
joined  Great  Britain  to  France  and  Holland.  The  bot- 
tom of  the  North  Sea  became  dry  land,  and  Scandinavia 


A   GRASP  OF  GEOLOGIC  TIME.  167 

also  was  connected  with  the  British  islands.  Most  of  the 
Baltic  Sea  constituted  a  great  lake.  The  land  had  even 
a  greater  northern  extent.  Continental  Europe  stretched 
to  Spitzbergen,  Iceland  and  Greenland,  and  now,  as  the 
climate  was  genial,  European  types  of  plants  and  animals 
ranged  to  those  far  northern  shores.  The  Rhine  and  the 
Weser  discharged  into  the  ocean  in  the  latitude  of  the 
FarOe  islands  ;  the  Thames,  the  Great  Ouse,  the  Humber, 
the  Tyne,  the  Tweed  and  the  Dee  were  all  tributaries  of 
the  Rhine.  At  this  epoch  man  found  his  way  into  Great 
Britain.  This  was  the  period  immediately  following  the 
dissolution  of  the  continental  glaciers.  It  was  succeeded 
by  a  subsidence  and  a  colder,  humid  climate.  Great 
Britain  became  insular.  Marshes  and  bogs  prevailed 
throughout  northern  Europe.  Another  elevation  was  at- 
tended by  the  return  of  a  milder  climate  and  a  luxuri- 
ant growth  of  forests.  Bronze  found  its  way  into  Great 
Britain.  Then  still  another  subsidence  occurred,  and  a 
period  of  wet  weather.  Iron  was  introduced.  Thus  with 
increasing  dryness  of  climate  prehistoric  times  passed  into 
historic.* 

It  may  be  that  northern  Europe  has  not  experienced 
so  great  a  number  of  oscillations  in  Post-Tertiary  times; 
but  all  geologists  are  agreed  that  since  the  beginning  of 
the  Glacial  Age  Great  Britain  has  been  twice  continental 
and  twice  insular.  It  is  generally  agreed  also  that  within 
the  same  interval  the  North  Sea  has  been  dry  land.  That 
Greenland,  Iceland  and  Spitzbergen  have  been  joined  to 
Europe  is  a  firm  doctrine  of  science,  and  the  only  ques- 
tion is  whether  the  connection  occurred  in  Post-Tertiary 
time  or  earlier.  In  any  event,  most  of  the  great  changes 

*  J.  Geikie,  Prehistoric  Europe,  ch.  xiv,  xxi  and  xxii. 


168  SPARKS   FROM   A  GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

enumerated  have  taken  place  during  the  present  geolog- 
ical period;  and  man,  short-lived  as  his  species  has  been, 
has  witnessed  geological  revolutions  which  have  trans- 
formed a  continent,  and  rise  in  magnitude  and  impor- 
tance to  an  equality  with  any  which  have  visited  the 
surface  of  our  earth  in  the  whole  progress  of  geological 
cycles. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  man  was  present  in 
Europe  while  yet  the  continental  glacier  stretched  into 
central  France  and  northern  Italy.  We  must  admit  so 
much,  though  denying  his  preglacial  advent.  We  con- 
template in  our  own  time  the  Alpine  glaciers  as  a  fine 
spectacle  displayed  in  the  midst  of  the  populous  homes  of 
European  civilization.  We  do  not  shrink  from  their 
presence,  but  most  profoundly  enjoy  their  novelty  and 
sublimity  ;  but  could  we  adequately  realize  the  historical 
fact  that  these  modern  centers  of  frost  and  winter  are 
but  the  vestiges  of  the  reign  of  a  perpetual  winter  which 
buried  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe  beneath  a  mantle  of 
snow  and  ice,  which  imposed  the  silence  and  solitude  of 
central  Greenland  for  a  term  of  unknown  centuries,  we 
might  contemplate  these  Alpine  strongholds  of  frost  and 
desolation  rather  with  the  grim  satisfaction  which  one 
experiences  at  the  fallen  fortunes  of  an  implacable  enemy. 
But  our  predecessors  in  Central  Europe  found  themselves 
on  the  borders  of  an  ice-cap  which  to  them  seemed  as 
changeless  and  eternal  as  the  glacier  sheets  of  the  Arctic 
zone.  Generation  after  generation  came  and  disappeared, 
and  the  glaciers  almost  imperceptibly  retreated.  European 
man,  accompanied  by  the  reindeer  and  other  northern 
types  of  animals,  followed  the  retreating  glacier  to  the 
shores  of  Lapland  and  the  slopes  of  the  Alps.  In  the 


A   GRASP  OF  GEOLOGIC   TIME.  169 

north  his  ethnic  characteristics  have  been  perpetuated 
from  age  to  age;  and  while  we  wonder  over  the  mystery 
of  the  apparition  and  migrations  of  our  species,  the  rep- 
resentative of  prehistoric  man  still  gazes  as  of  old  upon 
the  retiring  glacier  which  now  hovers  over  the  Arctic 
borders  of  Finland.  Farther  south,  a  more  enlightened 
type  of  the  species  has  absorbed  the  lingering  communi- 
ties of  prehistoric  men,  and  is  watching  the  disappearance 
of  the  last  vestiges  of  the  great  continental  glacier  van- 
ishing up  the  slopes  of  the  Alps.  The  history  of  man 
has  not  gone  back  to  the  reign  of  ice.  The  reign  of  ice, 
like  the  mammoth,  has  come  down  to  the  age  of  man. 
American  man  has  been  the  witness  of  similar  transfor- 
mations. He  dwelt  on  the  Pacific  coast  before  the  epoch 
of  general  glaciation.  He  saw  his  hunting-grounds  buried 
beneath  floods  of  lava  which  spread  themselves  over  ter- 
ritory vast  enough  for  half-a-dozen  states.  His  remains 
lie  inclosed  in  a  sarcophagus  of  lava.  He  survived  the 
molten  inundation  which  enkindled  to  luminosity  the  sur- 
face of  a  planet.  He  has  seen  the  storms  of  heaven  at 
work  on  the  erosion  of  these  lava-sheets,  and  watched  the 
growth  of  canons  which  are  a  thousand  feet  deep.  All 
these  events,  vast  and  destructive  and  transforming  as 
they  are,  have  been  grasped  by  the  observation  of  a  race 
which  still  lives  and  holds  intercourse  with  ourselves.* 

*The  evidences  of  the  Pliocene  age  of  the  human  remains  of  California 
have  been  gathered  together  by  Professor  J  D.  Whitney  in  his  work  on  The 
Auriferous  Gravels  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  of  California,  1879.  Flint  implements 
occur  also  in  the  auriferous  gravels  where  not  covered  with  lava.  These  gravels 
contain  plants  pronounced  Pliocene  (or  partly  Miocene)  by  so  good  an  author- 
ity as  Lesquereux.  Some  of  the  animal  species  found  in  the  same  association 
are  also  Pliocene  types.  The  conclusions  of  Whitney,  Winslow,  and  other  dis- 
coverers, are  undisputed  by  J.  D.  Dana.  Manual  of  Geology,  3d.  ed..  pp.  577-8, 
and  Joseph  Leconte,  Elements  of  Geology,  p.  567.  But  Mr.  James  C.  Sonthall 
says,  "  We  cannot  accept  such  monstrous  conclusions,  even  if  advanced  by  our 


170  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

In  the  Mississippi  valley  we  have  some  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  man  while  yet  Illinois  was  flooded  by  the  high 
waters  of  Lake  Michigan.  I  had  in  my  possession  for 
some  time  a  copper  relic  resembling  a  rude  coin,  which 
was  taken  from  an  artesian  boring  at  the  depth  of  114 
feet  at  Lawn  Ridge,  Marshall  county,  Illinois.  Mr.  W.  H. 
Wilmot,  then  of  Lawn  Ridge,  furnished  me,  in  a  letter 
dated  December  4,  1871,  the  following  statement  of  de- 
posits pierced  in  the  boring: 

Soil,  3  feet. 

Yellow  clay,  17     " 

Blue  clay,  44     " 

Dark  vegetable  matter,  4     " 

Hard  purplish  clay,  18     " 

Bright  green  clay,  8     ' 

Mottled  clay,  18    " 

Soil,  2     " 

Depth  of  coin,         114     " 
Yellow  clay,  1     " 

Sand  and  clay, 
Water,  rising  60  feet. 

In  a  letter  of  the  27th  of  December,  written  from  Chil- 
licothe,  Illinois,  he  stated  that  the  bore  was  four  inches 
for  eighty  feet,  and  three  inches  for  the  remainder  of  the 
depth.  But  befoi-e  one  hundred  feet  had  been  reached  the 
four-inch  portion  was  "so  plastered  over  as  to  be  itself 
but  three  inches  in  diameter,"  and  hence  the  "  coin  "  could 
not  have  come  from  any  depth  less  than  eighty  feet. 

most  eminent  scientific  authorities'"  (Meth.  Quar.  Rev.,  April  1881,  p.  228).  One 
cannot  help  wondering  what  sort  of  evidence  would  convince  Mr.  James  C. 
Southall. 


A   GRASP  OF  GEOLOGIC  TIME.  171 

"  Three  persons  saw  the  '  coin '  at  the  same  instant,  and 
each  claims  it."  This  so-called  coin  was  about  the  thick- 
ness and  size  of  a  silver  quarter  of  a  dollar,  and  was  of 
remarkably  uniform  thickness.  It  was  approximately 


A  QUASI-COIN  SAID  TO  HAVE  BEEN  TAKEN  PROM  AN  ARTESIAN 
BORING  IN  MARSHALL  COUNTY,  ILLINOIS,  AT  A  DEPTH  OP  ONE 
HUNDRED  AND  FOURTEEN  FEET.  FROM  A  PHOTOGRAPH  FUR- 
NISHED BY  J.  W.  MOFFAT. 

round,  and  seemed  to  have  been  cut.  Its  two  faces  bore 
marks  as  shown  in  the  figure,  but  they  were  not  stamped  as 
with  a  die,  nor  engraved.  They  looked  as  if  etched  with 
acid.  The  character  of  the  marks  was  partly  unintelligi- 
ble. On  each  side,  however,  was  a  rude  outline  of  a 
human  figure.  One  of  these  held  in  one  hand  an  object 
resembling  a  child,  while  the  other  hand  was  raised  as  if 
in  the  act  of  striking.  This  figure  wore  a  head-dress, 
appai'ently  made  of  quills.  Around  the  border  were  un- 
decipherable hieroglyphics.  The  figure  on  the  opposite 
side  extended  only  to  the  waist,  and  had  also  one  hand 
upraised.  This  was  furnished  with  long  tufts,  like  mules' 
ears.  Around  the  border  was  another  circle  of  hiero- 
glyphics. On  this  side,  also,  was  the  rude  outline  of  a  quad- 
ruped. I  exhibited  this  relic  to  the  Geological  Section  of 
the  American  Association,  at  its  meeting  at  Buffalo  in 
1876.  The  general  impression  seemed  to  be  that  its  ori- 
gin could  not  date  from  the  epoch  of  the  stratum  in  which 


172  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

it  is  reputed  to  have  been  found.  One  person  thought 
he  could  detect  a  rude  representation  of  the  signs  of  the 
zodiac  around  the  border.  Another  fancied  he  could  dis- 
cover numerals,  and  even  dates.  No  one  could  even  offer 
any  explanation  of  the  object,  or  the  circumstances  of  its 
discovery.  The  figures  bear  a  close  I'esemblance  to  rude 
drawings  executed  on  birch  bark  and  rock  surfaces  by  the 
American  Indian.  But  by  what  means  were  they  etched? 
And  by  what  means  was  the  uniform  thickness  of  the 
copper  produced? 

This  object  was  sent  by  the  owner  to  the  Smithsonian 
Institution  for  examination,  and  Secretary  Henry  referred 
it  to  Mr.  William  E.  Dubois,  who  presented  the  result  of 
his  investigation  to  the  American  Philosophical  Society.* 
Mr.  Dubois  felt  sure  that  the  object  had  passed  through 
a  rolling-mill,  and  he  thought  the  cut  edges  gave  further 
evidence  of  the  machine-shop.  "  All  things  considered," 
he  said,  "  I  cannot  regard  this  Illinois  piece  as  ancient, 
nor  old  (observing  the  usual  distinction),  nor  yet  recent; 
because  the  tooth  of  time  is  plainly  visible."  He  could 
suggest  nothing  to  clear  up  the  mystery.  Prof  J.  P.  Les- 
ley thought  it  might  be  an  astrological  amulet.  He  de- 
tected upon  it  the  signs  of  Pisces  and  Leo.  He  read  the 
date  1572.  He  said  "the  piece  was  placed  there  as  a 
practical  joke."  He  thought  it  might  be  Hispano- Ameri- 
can or  French-American  in  origin.  The  suggestion  of  "  a 
practical  joke "  is  itself  something  which  must  be  taken 
as  a  joke.  No  person  in  possession  of  this  interesting 
object  would  willingly  part  with  it  ;  least  of  all  would 

*  W.  E.  Dubois,  Proceedings  Amer.  Phil.  Soc.,  xii,  224,  December  1,  1871. 
Mr.  Jacob  \V.  Moffat,  who  sent  the  coin,  accompanied  it  with  a  statement  of  for- 
mations passed  through,  which  differs  slightly  from  that  supplied  to  me  by  Mr. 
W.  H.  Wilmot.  He  also  makes  the  depth  125  feet. 


A    GRASP   OF   GEOLOGIC   TIME.  173 

he  throw  so  small  an  object  into  a  hole  where  not  one 
chance  in  a  thousand  existed  that  it  would  ever  be  seen 
again  by  any  person. 

If  this  object  does  not  date  from  the  age  of  the  stra- 
tum from  which  obtained,  it  can  only  be  a  relic  of  the 
sixteenth  or  seventeenth  century,  buried  beneath  the  allu- 
vium deposited  more  recently  by  the  Illinois  river.  The 
country  is  a  level  prairie,  and  "  Peoria  Lake "  is  an  ex- 
pansion of  the  river  ten  miles  long  and  a  mile  and  a 
half  broad.  It  is  certainly  possible  that  in  such  a  region 
deep  alluvial  deposits  may  have  formed  since  the  visits 
of  the  French  in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. But  it  is  not  easy  to  admit  an  accumulation  of 
114  or  125  feet,  since  such  a  depth  extends  too  much 
below  the  surface  of  the  river.  In  Whiteside  county,  50 
miles  northwest  from  Peoria  county,  about  1851,  accord- 
ing to  Mr.  MofFat,  a  large  copper  ring  was  found  120 
feet  beneath  the  surface,  as  also  something  which  has 
been  compared  to  a  boat-hook.  Several  other  objects  have 
been  found  at  less  depths,  including  stone  pipes  and  pot- 
tery, and  a  spear-shaped  hatchet,  made  of  iron.  If  these 
are  not  "ancient,"  their  occurrence  at  depths  of  10,  40, 
50  and  120  feet  must  be  explained  as  I  have  suggested 
in  reference  to  the  "  coin."  An  instrument  of  iron  is  a 
strong  indication  of  the  civilized  origin  of  all. 

I  do  not  present  these  facts  as  evidence  that  the  Indian 
roamed  over  Illinois  before  the  prairie  soil  was  deposited. 
I  do  not  conclude  that  these  objects  may  have  been  lost 
from  Indian  canoes  at  a  time  when  the  prairies  of  Illinois 
were  under  water.  I  think  it  proper,  however,  to  put 
them  on  record,  and  leave  the  subject  for  future  elucida- 
tion. 


174  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  well  ascertained  that  the  American 
Indian  dwelt  in  the  Mississippi  valley  before  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  Mammoth  and  Mastodon;  and  it  is  highly 
probable  that  he  saw  Lake  Michigan  spreading  over  Peo- 
ria  and  Marshall  and  Whiteside  counties,  and  that  he 
paddled  his  canoe  over  the  regions  where  these  mysterious 
relics  of  copper,  iron  and  clay  have  been  discovered.  We 
thus  apprehend  that  the  present  oi-der  of  things  connects 
itself  by  an  intelligible  continuity  with  a  former  set  of 
conditions  identified  with  the  origin  of  a  great  geological 
formation;  and  we  feel  that  we  command  a  unit  of  meas- 
ure for  a  genuine  geological  aeon. 

Thus,  when  we  look  attentively  upon  the  phenomena 
occurring  in  the  presence  of  our  species,  we  find  ourselves 
living  in  the  midst  of  geological  history.  Grand  geolog- 
ical events  no  longer  recede  into  the  infinite  past.  Though 
earlier  events  reach  back  over  ages  unconiputed,  the  grand 
revolutions  which  have  made  the  surface  what  it  is  are 
brought  down  within  our  grasp.  We  feel  that  we  have 
a  hold  upon  geologic  time.  We  can  compass  the  requi- 
sites of  stupendous  events  that  transform  continents.  We 
feel  relief  in  emerging  from  the  mysteries  of  the  unfath- 
omable past,  and  setting  our  feet  upon  geologic  intervals 
which  reveal  their  limits  and  their  bounds.  Man  rises 
to  a  higher  altitude.  He  grasps  a  larger  thought;  he 
feels  his  way  closer  to  the  infinite  purposes;  he  is  con- 
scious of  it;  and  exults  anew  in  his  intelligent  existence. 


GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS. 


A  CCORDING  to  the  accepted  theory  of  terrestrial  refrig- 
-*-^~  eration,  the  inherent  temperature  of  the  earth  is 
continually  diminishing.  So  far  as  its  climates  are  influ- 
enced by  inherent  temperature,  they  must  continually  grow 
colder.  Before  the  earth  began  to  be  incrusted  a  circula- 
tion of  its  constituent  parts  must  have  been  active.  Loss 
of  heat  in  the  peripheral  portions  would  result  in  a  sink- 
ing of  those  condensed  portions  toward  the  center.  More 
highly-heated  portions  would  rise  to  supply  their  place. 
Thus,  as  in  the  sea,  and  in  the  atmosphere,  a  circulation 
would  result  from  the  unequal  temperatures  of  different 
portions. 

But  after  the  commencement  of  incrustation  those  por- 
tions fixed  in  the  crust  would  no  longer  enter  into  the  cir- 
culation. The  superficial  portions  would  remain  continu- 
ally exposed  to  the  cooling  action  of  external  space.  The 
effect  of  this  would  be  to  depress  the  superficial  tempera- 
ture below  what  it  would  be  if  all  the  parts  were  free  to 
circulate.  The  crust  would  become  disproportionately 
cooled,  and  would  continually  thicken.  The  cooling  of  the 
interior  would  be  proportionally  slackened.  The  time 
would  arrive  when  the  cooling  of  the  interior  would  be  so 
much  obstructed  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible.  That 
period  seems  to  be  the  present.  If  we  may  trust  the  re- 
sults of  mathematical  calculation,  based  on  the  known 

175 


176  SPAEKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

conductibility  of  heat  possessed  by  the  rocky  materials, 
the  earth's  internal  heat  is  so  securely  imprisoned  that  it 
yields  but  one-fortieth  of  the  actual  temperature  of  the 
world's  surface.  This  is  a  calculation  of  Pouillet.  Pro- 
fessor Vogt  estimates  that  if  the  earth  were  completely 
cooled,  its  surface  temperature  would  be  eleven-twelfths 
as  high  as  at  present.  These  figures  show,  at  least,  that 
the  present  influence  of  internal  heat  upon  the  climates  of 
the  earth  is  so  slight  that  it  may  be  neglected. 

But  it  is  evident  that  in  the  eai'lier  periods  of  crust- 
formation  the  earth's  internal  heat  was  an  important  fac- 
tor in  climate.  The  condition  of  the  atmosphere  conspired 
with  the  internal  heat  to  raise  the  mean  temperature  of 
the  earth's  surface.  Charged  with  gaseous  impurities,  and 
a  superabundance  of  aqueous  vapor,  it  served  as  a  blanket 
wrapped  around  the  earth  to  arrest  radiation.  The  first 
general  principle  thus  deduced  in  reference  to  geological 
climates  is  that  they  have  suffered  a  secular  and  continuous 
depression  of  temperature. 

But  we  have  much  evidence  of  grand  secular  FLUCTUA- 
TIONS of  temperature.  It  would  involve  us  in  too  great 
detail  to  enter  upon  a  genei-al  discussion  of  these  fluctua- 
ions,  but  I  propose  to  offer  an  exposition  of  the  most  im- 
portant, and,  as  we  now  understand  the  subject,  the  most 
regular  of  all  the  climatic  fluctuations  which  our  world 
has  felt. 

The  northern  hemisphere  has  been  visited,  at  a  period 
geologically  modern,  by  a  remarkable  depression  of  tem- 
perature. "  The  Great  Ice  Age "  had  barely  passed  when 
man  first  made  his  advent  in  Europe.  The  traces  of  a 
geological  winter  repose  everywhere  throughout  northern 
America  and  Europe.  The  very  hills  of  gravel  and  clay 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  177 

which  so  agreeably  diversify  the  general  surface  of  the 
northern  states  are  records  of  the  last  geologic  winter,  and 
of  the  spring-time  which  followed.  The  rounded  bosses  of 
the  rocky  outcrops ;  the  grooved,  striated  and  polished  rock- 
surfaces  which  everywhere  underlie  the  soil  and  subsoil; 
the  deep-cut  gorges  of  some  of  the  rivers,  and  the  broad  ero- 
sions of  certain  lake-basins, —  these  and  other  familiar  phe- 
nomena find  their  explanation  in  the  activities  of  a  secular' 
winter,  which  clothed  the  northern  hemisphere  as  far  as 
the  latitude  of  36°  with  a  mantle  of  ice  and  snow.  This 
ice-period  is  one  of  the  recognized  epochs  of  geologic 
histoiy. 

Some  of  the  most  salient  phenomena  attributed  to  the 
reign  of  glacier  ice  are  smoothed  and  striated  rock-surfaces, 
and  accumulations  of  rounded  pebbles.  Precisely  these 
phenomena  have  been  detected  among  the  rocks  of  remoter 
ages  of  the  world's  history.  More  than  thirty  years  ago, 
the  New  York  geologists  called  attention  to  the  smoothed 
surfaces  of  the  Medina  Sandstone  in  the  western  part  of 
that  State.  They  did  not  then  dare  to  utter  the  conjecture 
that  these  are  glaciated  surfaces;  though  recent  opinion 
strongly  inclines  in  that  direction.  Foreign  geologists 
have  made  similar  observations  in  numerous  other  forma- 
tions.* In  the  Miocene  System,  that  vast  Swiss  formation 

*  Besides  the  cases  cited  in  the  text,  we  may  mention  the  CAMBRIAN  or  LAU- 
RENTIAN  (James  Thomson,  British  Association,  1870,  88;  A.  C.  Ramsay,  Swan- 
sea Address,  1880;  Nature,  xxii.  388;  A.  Geikie,  Nature,  xxii,  402,  in  northwest 
part  of  Scotland) ;  —  LOWEK  SILURIAN  (J.  Carrick  Moore,  Quar.  Jour.  Geol. 
Soc.,  Lond.,  v,  10;  Philosoph.  Mag.,  April  1865,  289;  Geikie,  Great  fee  Age, 
513;  Jukes,  Manual  of  Geol.,  42) ;  Haughton  in  McClintock's  Narrative  of  Arc- 
tic Discoveries;  Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  xi,  510;  A.  C.  Ramsay, Swansea  Address, 
1880^ ;—  UPPER  SILURIAN,  in  Colorado  (C.  D.  Walcott,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  xx, 
222,  225) ;— DEVONIAN  (A.  C.  Ramsay,  fieader,  12  Aug.  1865;  Gumming,  History 
of  Is'e  of  Man,  86;  Sclwyn,  Phys  Geog.  and  Geol.  of  Victoria,  1866,  15, 16;  Tay- 
lor and  Etheridge,  Geol.  Surv.  Victoria,  Quarter-Sheet  13,  NE;  J.  P.  Lesley.  2d 
Geol.  Surv.  Pa.,  i,  86,  Portage  Group;  C.  D.  Walcott,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  xx, 
12 


178  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

known  as  the  Molasse,  seems  to  be  but  an  older  bed  of  gla- 
cier pebbles,  extremely  similar  to  those  accumulated  upon 
the  existing  surface  along  the  slopes  and  flanks  of  the  Alps. 
Mr.  Croll,  a  distinguished  Scottish  geologist,  is  of  the  opin- 
ion that  most  of  the  shingle  formations,  through  the  whole 
series  of  rocks,  are  but  ancient  glacier  accumulations.  If 
so,  the  evidences  of  oft-repeated  epochs  of  glaciation  are 
abundant  and  familiar.  The  conglomeritic  deposits  of  the 
Coal  Measures  are  regarded  by  Croll  as  of  this  character, 
while  the  coal-beds  intervening  between  the  fragmental 
strata  are  regarded  as  the  records  of  interglacial  periods. 
These  phenomena  of  alternating  coal-beds  and  fragmental 
strata  are  generally  explained  on  the  hypothesis  of  alterna- 
tions in  the  relative  levels  of  land  and  sea,  not  necessarily 
accompanied  by  great  changes  of  climate.  Personally,  I  do 
not  accept,  as  yet,  Mr.  Croll's  view.  I  consider  it  a  plain 
error  to  regard  all  shingle-beds  as  evidence  of  glacial  ac- 
tion*. Pebbles  imply  attrition, —  long  continued  attrition; 
but  the  force  of  moving  water  is  adequate  to  the  produc- 
tion of  beds  of  pebbles.  This  is  exemplified  upon  the  shores 

222) ;—  PERMIAN  (Amer.  Naturalist,  iv,  560;  Ramsay,  Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  xi, 
197;  Swansea  Address;  Sutherland  (Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  xxvi,  514;  H.  T. 
Blanford,  ib.  1875,519;  Daintree,  Geol.  DM.  Ba'.lan  Victoria,  1866,  xi;  C.  D.  Wal- 
cott,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci..  Ill,  xx,  222) ;— TBIASSIC  (T.  A.  Conrad  and  H.  Wurtz, 
1869;  Jas.  D.  Dana,  Amer.  Jour.  Set.,  Ill,  ix,  315,  xvii,  330;  Fontaine,  Amer. 
Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  xvi,  236) ;—  JURASSIC  (Fontaine,  loc.  cit. ;  Judd,  Quar.  Jour.  Geol. 
Soc.,  xxix;  Phil.  Mag.,  xxix,  290) ;— between  MIDDLE  CRETACEOUS  and  LOWER 
EOCENE  (J.  W.  Dawson,  Princeton  Rev.,  March  1879,  284.  Compare  also  Lyell, 
Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc..  Lond.,  ii,  280;  Travels  in  N.  America,  1st  Visit,  ii.  08; 
M.  Tuomey,  Geol.  Ala.,  116;  W.  B.  Rogers,  Proc.  Boston  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  xviii.  101 
seq.  1875,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  xi,  61);— in  the  English  CRETACEOUS  (Godwin 
Austen,  Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  xiv,  262,  xvi,  327;  British  Assoc.  fop.  1857,  62; 
Geologist,  1860,  38);—  in  the  CRETACEOUS  of  India  (A.  C.  Ramsay,  Swansea  Ad- 
dress);— a.  cold  period  at  base  of  Eocene  (Nature,  July  10.  1879,  258);— in  the 
FLYSCH  of  Switzerland  (Lyell,  Pi-inciples) ;—  in  the  MIOCENE  (Ga^taldi,  Mem. 
Acad.  Sci.,  Turin  ii,  xx;  A.  C.  Ramsay,  loc.  cit);—  on  CroH's  extension  of  the 
idea  to  the  Coal  Measures,  see  Climate  and  Time,  296-8.  and  ch  xxvi.  Opposed 
to  the  doctrine  of  recurrence  of  glacial  periods,  see  A .  R.  Wallace  in  Island 
Life. 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  179 

of  every  river  and  lake;  and  still  more  unequivocally  along 
the  ocean's  beach. 

I  am  of  the  opinion,  nevertheless,  that  the  northern 
hemisphere  has  been  repeatedly  visited  by  glaciation.  In 
seeking,  therefore,  the  explanation  of  the  last  great  ice- 
age,  we  must  seek  a  theory  which  will  explain  the  suc- 
cession of  ice-ages.  This  the  older  theories  failed  to  ac- 
complish. It  was,  for  instance,  suggested  long  ago  as  one 
of  the  most  obvious  theoretical  expedients,  that  perhaps 
the  poles  and  the  equator  had  changed  places,  bringing 
tropical  climates  into  regions  which  are  now  frigid;  or 
that,  at  least,  the  axis  of  the  earth  had  changed  its  posi- 
tion, resulting  in  the  location  of  the  north  pole  somewhere 
in  the  north  temperate  zone.  But  these  hypotheses  are 
opposed  by  the  stability  of  the  movements  and  conditions 
of  the  earth  and  the  solar  system.  Indeed,  changes  of 
the  kind  mentioned  would  disturb  the  harmony  of  the 
planetary  realm.*  Moreover,  the  displacement  of  the  pole 
to  any  extent  admissible  by  possible  changes  in  the  figure 
of  the  earth,  would  be  an  insignificant  cause  of  climatic 
changes.  Mr.  G.  H-  Darwin  has  shown  that  to  displace 
the  pole  1°  46',  one-twentieth  of  the  surface  of  the  earth 
must  be  lifted  ten  thousand  feet.  All  the  physical  changes 
in  distribution  of  the  earth's  mass  which  have  taken  place 
since  the  glacial  epoch  could  not  have  shifted  the  place 
of  the  pole  more  than  six  miles.  Since  Silurian  Time  no 
terrestrial  changes  have  occurred  which  would  vary  the 
place  of  the  pole  to  any  perceptible  extent.  Any  change 

*Sir  W.  Thomson,  Brit.  Assoc  Rep.,  1876,  pt.  ii,  p.  11;  Trans.  Geol.  Soc. 
Glasgoiv,  iv,  313;  Haughton,  Proc.  Roy.  Soc.,  xxvi,  51;  G.  H.  Darwin,  Trans. 
Roy.  Soc.,  clxvii,  pt.  i;  I.  F.  Twisden.  Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  Lond.,  Feb.  1878; 
James  Croll,  Geological  Magazine,  Sept.  1878;  G.  B.  Airy,  Athenaeum,  Sept.  22, 
1869.  See,  also,  Laplace,  Systems  du  Monde,  ed.  1824,  p.  392. 


180  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

in  the  position  of  the  pole  must  accompany  a  change  in 
the  position  of  the  compressed  and  protuberant  regions  of 
the  earth.  This  would  change  to  a  great  extent  the  rela- 
tive location  of  water  and  land  areas.  But  the  strati- 
fied rocks  demonstrate  that  no  considerable  changes  of 
this  kind  have  taken  place  since  Silurian  Time.  And 
finally,  the  indications  of  both  warmer  and  colder  climates 
exist  on  opposite  sides  of  the  polar  zone;  but  a  change 
in  the  position  of  the  pole,  while  conferring  a  milder 
temperature  on  one  side, —  say  the  American  Arctic  archi- 
pelago,—  would  bring  a  sevei'er  climate  to  the  opposite 
side, —  say  in  Nova  Zembla  and  Bear  Island. 

Again,  it  was  suggested  by  Poisson,*  and  maintained 
by  the  elder  Agassiz,  f  that  perhaps  the  earth,  in  the 
journey  of  our  system  through  space,  passes  occasionally 
through  regions  of  excessive  cold.  Others  have  suggested 
a  diminution  of  the  sun's  heat,  but  restored  again  in  later 
times.  %  Both  suppositions  imply  that  all  parts  of  the 
earth's  surface  suffer  a  depression  of  temperature  at  the 
same  time.  This  would  require  that  traces  of  glacier 
action  should  exist  in  tropical  as  well  as  temperate  regions. 
The  facts,  in  spite  of  Agassiz'  supposed  moraines  in  the 
empire  of  Brazil,  do  not  answer  to  the  expectation. 

A  theory  which  enjoys  considerable  popularity  supposes 
that  such  distributions  of  land  and  water  have  existed  in 
former  times  as  would  change  the  location  of  ocean  cur- 
rents to  an  extent  which  would  revolutionize  terrestrial 
climates.§  That  profound  climatic  characteristics  of  cer- 

*  Tlieorle  math,  de  la  chaletir.  Comptes  Rendus,  Jan.  30, 1837. 

t  L.  Agassiz,  A  Journey  In  Brazil,  399  425. 

t  Lyell,  Prin.  Geol.  128;  Sir  John  Herschel,  Proc.  Roy.  Astron.  Soc.,  No.  iii, 
Jan.  1840. 

§  Lyell,  Principles  of  Geol.,  ch.  vii,  viii;  J.  W.  Dawson,  Princeton  Review, 
March  1879;  A.  R.  Wallace,  Island  Life;  Nature,xs\u,  124. 


GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS.  181 

tain  regions  are  determined  by  the  existing  distribution 
of  oceanic  currents  is  a  fact  which  all  admit,  and  which 
will  be  further  mentioned  in  another  part  of  this  chapter. 
But  to  be  an  adequate  cause  of  the  existence  of  an  arctic 
climate  in  regions  now  temperate  there  must  have  been 
a  transposition  of  land  and  water  much  more  extensive 
than  is  allowed  by  the  admitted  persistence  of  the  oceanic 
basins,  and  the  great  continental  areas.  Moreover,  it  is 
very  difficult  to  conceive  a  distribution  of  land  and  water 
which  would  bring  an  arctic  temperature  to  New  Eng- 
land, New  York  and  Ohio.  Most  of  all,  such  a  theory  is 
not  adapted  to  the  explanation  of  a  succession  of  ice-periods. 
Again,  northern  elevation  has  been  cited  as  a  cause  ade- 
quate to  effect  the  glaciation  of  the  northern  hemisphere. 
Professor  Dana,  with  his  usual  insight  into  the  symmetry 
and  coordination  of  things,  has  directed  our  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  growth  of  the  continent  of  North  America 
was,  for  many  ages,  toward  the  southeast  and  the  south- 
west. When  these  borders  seemed  complete  the  work  of 
development  was  transferred  to  the  north,  and  the  north- 
ern border  of  the  continent  was  worked  out.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  land  was  always  effected  through  a  succession 
of  elevations.  When  considerable  elevation  had  been  pro- 
duced in  the  northern  regions,  the  climate  of  the  zone 
felt  the  effects  ;  just  as  southern  Austria  and  northern 
Italy  receive  a  chill  from  the  Alpine  ranges  which  lie 
on  the  north  of  them,  and  render  the  winters  of  Verona 
and  the  Tyrol  much  severer  than  those  of  Berlin  and 
Hamburg.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  northprn  elevation 
would  materially  influence  the  climate  of  the  temperate 
zone,  but  it  may  be  doubted  whether  the  influence  would 
amount  to  universal  glaciation,  even  if  we  assume  north- 


182  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ern  elevation  throughout  all  the  arctic  and  sub-arctic 
regions.  It  is  indeed  manifest  that  the  northern  regions 
have  undergone  great  changes  of  level.  All  the  United 
States  north  of  the  Ohio,  and  all  Canada,  have  stood  at 
a  lower  level  since  the  present  surface  was  finished;  and 
there  is  ground  for  the  belief  that  just  before  this  subsi- 
dence they  stood  at  a  higher  level  than  at  present.  But 
these  oscillations  can  hardly  be  conceived  an  adequate 
cause  of  continental  glaciation.  They  do  not  seem  to 
possess  the  requisite  efficiency;  nor  have  they  been  timed 
to  suit  the  relations  of  causal  antecedence  to  the  great 
phenomenon.  It  is  more  probable  that  the  elevation  which 
has  taken  place  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  incident  or  effect 
of  general  glaciation,  rather  than  the  cause  of  it. 

Finally,  scientists  have  turned  their  attention  again  to 
the  search  after  an  astronomical  cause  of  the  great  ice- 
age.  That  the  cause  was  astronomical  seems  indicated  by 
the  proofs  of  a  succession  of  ice-ages.  Astronomical  move- 
ments describe  great  cycles.  At  the  end  of  a  certain 
period  the  old  conditions  are  reproduced,  and  the  old 
results  are  reenacted.  The  principal  ones  of  these  astro- 
nomical causes  I  shall  attempt  to  explain  in  outline,  es- 
pecially that  based  on  variations  in  terrestrial  eccentricity. 
The  subject,  however,  will  demand  the  thoughtful  attention 
of  the  reader.  It  is  a  subject  not  always  rationally  com- 
prehended, even  by  geologists  who  accept  the  authority  for 
an  astronomical  origin  of  ice-periods. 

There  are  three  values  in  connection  with  the  earth's 
movements,  changes  in  which  must  affect  the  earth's  cli- 
mates to  some  extent.  These  values  are:  1.  The  inclina- 
tion of  the  earth's  axis  to  the  plane  of  the  ecliptic;  2. 
The  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  or  position  of  the  peri- 


GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS.  183 

helion  and  aphelion  points  (apsides)  in  reference  to  the 
equinoctial  points;  3.  The  eccentricity  of  the  earth's  orbit. 
These  elements  are  all  changing.  They  do  not,  however, 
change  indefinitely  in  one  direction.  They  pass  through 
a  cycle  of  values.  Each  has,  in  the  course  of  ages,  its 
maximum  and  its  minimum.  All  these  astronomical 
causes  were  long  ago  considered,  but  were  successively 
pronounced  inadequate.  The  search  for  an  adequate  as- 
tronomical cause  was  undertaken  by  Humboldt,  Arago, 
Lyell,  Sir  John  Herschel,  and  others,  but  without  success. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  perceive  that  the  three  causes  named 
must  produce  severally  some  effect  upon  the  climates  of 
the  northern  and  southern  hemispheres  respectively;  but 
in  each  case  it  has  been  generally  considered  unimportant. 
As  to  increased  obliquity  of  the  axis,  it  is  obvious  that 
it  would  render  the  sun's  rays  more  vertical  in  the  hemi- 
sphere turned  toward  the  sun, —  that  is,  the  width  of  the 
torrid  zone  would  be  increased.  During  summer  this  in- 
creased vertically  of  the  rays  would  diminish  polar  glacia- 
tion.  During  winter  the  sun  would  be  permanently  below 
the  horizon  ;  but  that  is  its  condition  with  the  present 
obliquity.  When  below  the  winter  horizon,  it  is  imma- 
terial whether  one  or  many  degrees  below, —  the  solar  in- 
fluence is  simply  wanting.  Therefore,  increased  obliquity 
would  not  increase  glaciation  during  the  winter,  though  it 
would  diminish  glaciation  during  the  summer.  The  re- 
sultant annual  effect  would  be  a  diminution  of  glaciation; 
and,  correspondingly,  diminished  obliquity  would  cause  an 
increase  of  glaciation.  This  cause  would  not  produce  alter- 
nating effects  in  the  two  polar  regions  during  a  succession 
of  secular  intervals,  but  would  operate  alike  in  both  re- 
gions during  the  whole  cycle  of  changes  in  the  obliquity. 


184  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

The  glaciating  action  would  alternate  annually,  and  only 
as  the  seasons  alternate.* 

As  to  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes,  this  results  in 
a  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  earth's  axis  when  in  the 
apsides.  At  present,  when  the  earth  is  in  perihelion,  the 
north  pole  is  turned  away  from  the  sun,  and  the  north- 
ern hemisphere  has  winter.  Suppose  that  in  the  course 
of  ages  the  north  pole  should  become  turned  toward  the 
sun  at  time  of  perihelion:  then,  the  obliquity  remaining 
the  same,  the  force  of  the  sun's  rays  would  be  increased 
in  the  polar  regions  during  the  winter  by  all  the  amount 
of  the  difference  in  the  sun's  summer  and  winter  dis- 
tances from  the  earth.  If,  for  instance,  the  sun  is  now 
three  millions  of  miles  nearer  the  earth  in  winter  than 
in  summer,  in  the  case  supposed  the  sun  would  be  three 
millions  of  miles  nearer  the  earth  in  summer  than  in 
winter.  That  is,  it  would  be  six  million  miles  nearer  the 
earth  than  at  present  in  summer,  and  the  same  amount 
remoter  in  winter.  But  it  is  in  summer  that  the  sun's 
effects  are  produced  on  polar  glaciation.  The  result  would 
therefore  be  to  diminish  northern  glaciation.  During 
winter,  as  the  sun  is  permanently  below  the  horizon,  or 
near  the  horizon,  it  is  comparatively  immaterial  whether 
three  millions  of  miles  more  remote  or  not.  Half  a  cycle 
in  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes  would  therefore  di- 
minish northern  glaciation  and  correspondingly  increase 
southern  glaciation.  The  complete  cycle  of  precession  is 
about  21,000  years ;  hence  from  this  cause  we  should 
have  in  the  northern  hemisphere  a  secular  winter  every 
21,000  years,  followed,  after  10,500  years,  by  a  secular 
summer.  The  southern  hemisphere  would  have  secular 

*  See  a  paper  by  James  Croll  in  Geological  Magazine,  London,  Sept.  1878. 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  185 

winters  and  summers  alternating  with  those  of  the  north- 
ern hemisphere.* 

Whatever  the  climatic  effect  of  this  astronomical  cause, 
it  is  now  generally  regarded  as  insufficient.  Mr.  Croll 
indeed  pronounces  its  efficiency  null.f 

Lastly,  let  us  consider  the  effects  of  increased  eccen- 
tricity of  the  earth's  orbit  on  the  climates  of  the  northern 
hemisphere, —  understanding  increased  eccentricity  signi- 
fies an  elongation  of  the  earth's  orbit,  so  as  to  bring  the 
perihelion  point  nearer  the  sun,  and  remove  the  aphelion 
point  to  a  greater  distance.  This  subject  was  investigated 
by  Sir  John  Herschel,}:  and  after  him  by  Arago  and 
Humboldt ;  but  their  conclusion  showed  that  neither  in- 
crease nor  diminution  of  eccentricity  could  directly  influ- 
ence, to  any  material  extent,  the  amount  of  heat  received 
by  the  two  hemispheres  respectively  in  the  course  of  a 
year  ;  or  so  disturb  the  annual  distribution  over  either 
hemisphere  as  to  result  in  a  permanent  and  general 
glaciation.  This  results  from  the  fact  that  just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  earth's  perihelion  distance  from  the  sun  is 
diminished,  the  earth's  orbital  velocity  in  that  part  of  its 
orbit  is  accelei-ated,  and  thus  the  perihelion  effect  upon 
climate  is  shortened  in  duration;  and  just  as  the  aphelion 
distance  is  increased  the  earth's  aphelion  velocity  is  re- 
tarded, and  the  diminished  solar  intensity  is  continued 

*Adh£mar,  Revolutions  de  la  mer,  2d.  ed.,  1860;  Le  Hon,  Periodicite  dts 
Grandes  Deluges,  1858;  A.  R.  Wallace,  Island  Life.  Mr.  J.  J.  Murphy  maintains 
that  the  occurrence  of  the  summer  solstice  in  perihelion  would  tend  to  increase 
northern  glaciation  (Quar.  Jour.  Geol  8oc.,  xxv,  350). 

t  Croll,  Climate  and  Time,  S'i  ;  Phil.  Mag.,  Sept.  1869.  See,  also,  Arago, 
Edinb.  New  Phil.  Jour.,  vi,  1834. 

t  Sir  J.  Herschel,  Geological  Transactions,  1832;  Treatise  on  Astronomy,  §315; 
Outlines  of  Astronomy,  §  368;  Arago,  Annuaire  du  Bureau  des  Longitudes,  1834, 
p.  199;  Edinb.  New  Phil.  Jour.,  April  1834,  p.  244;  Humboldt,  Cosmos,  iv,  459, 
Bonn's  ed. ;  Phys.  Descrip.  Heavens,  336. 


186  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

enough  longer  to  compensate  for  its  feebleness.  M.  Ad- 
h£mar  subsequently  subjected  the  question  to  a  more 
thorough  investigation,  and  announced  that  increased  ec- 
centricity concurring  with  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes 
would  so  modify  the  climate  of  the  northern  hemisphere 
as  to  produce,  once  in  21,000  years,  the  geological  winter 
to  which  I  before  referred.  Nevertheless,  the  general 
opinion  of  physicists  has  been  opposed  to  Adhemar's  con- 
clusion in  reference  to  the  amount  of  the  modification. 

The  subject  has  been  more  recently  taken  up  by  Mr. 
Croll,  of  Glasgow  ;  and  he  has  shown  by  an  ingenious 
course  of  reasoning  that  though  the  direct  effect  of  an 
increased  ellipticity  in  the  earth's  orbit  might  be  incon- 
siderable, still  the  effect  produced  would  so  modify  the 
oceanic  currents  as  to  greatly  increase  the  precipitation 
of  snow  in  the  northern  hemisphere,  and  diminish  the 
amount  of  snow  and  ice  in  the  southern.* 

The  calculations  of  astronomers  have  shown  that  when 
the  eccentricity  is  at  a  maximum  the  earth  will  be  14,212,- 
700  miles  farther  from  the  sun  in  aphelion  than  in  peri- 
helion. As  the  periods  of  high  eccentricity  continue  from 
50,000  to  75,000  years,  the  precession  of  the  equinoxes, 
which  completes  its  cycle  in  about  21,000  years,  will 
bring  the  winter  solstice  of  either  hemisphere  to  coincide 

"James  Croll,  Climate  and  Time.  See  a  brief  statement  of  the  theory  by 
Mr.  Croll  in  the  Geological  Magazine,  Sept.  1878,  extracted  in  Amer.  Jour.  Set., 
Ill,  xvi,  389,  and  a  fuller  statement  by  the  present  writer  in  International 
Review,  July-August  1876.  See  criticisms  of  Croll's  work,  by  S.  Newcomb, 
Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  xi,  263;  J.  J.  Murphy,  Quar.  Jour.  Geol.  Soc.,  xxv,  350, 
1869,  abstract  Amtr.  Jour.  Sci.,  II,  xlix,  115-18 ;  Ch.  Martins,  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  1867;  W.  J.  McGee,  Popular  Science  Monthly,  xvi,  810;  C.  B.  Warring, 
Penn  Monthly,  1880.  Further  on  this  subject  the  reader  may  consult  Le  Hon, 
ISHomme  Fossile,  pt.  ii;  Col.  Drayson,  Phil.  Mag.,  1871,  abstracted  in  Amer. 
Jour.  Sci.,  Ill,  ii,  304;  Sir  W.  Thomson,  Geological  Climate,  Trans.  Geol.  Soc., 
Glasgow,  February  1877,  vol.  v,  pt.  ii;  James  Geikie,  Prehistoric  Europe,  1880; 
G.  Pilar,  Ueber  die  Ursache  der  Eiszeiten. 


GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS.  187 

with  the  earth's  aphelion  once  or  more  during  the  con- 
tinuance of  a  period  of  high  eccentricity.  At  the  present 
time  the  winter  solstice  of  the  northern  hemisphere  oc- 
curs in  perihelion.  When  brought  to  occur  in  aphelion 
during  a  cycle  of  extreme  eccentricity,  the  earth  would 
be  8,641,870  miles  farther  from  the  sun  in  winter  than 
at  present.  This  difference  would  cause  the  sun's  inten- 
sity to  be  one-fifth  less  during  winter  than  at  present. 
It  is  true  that  it  would  also  be  one-fifth  greater  during 
summer;  and  thus  the  annual  constant  of  the  solar  heat 
would  not  be  diminished.  To  speak  more  precisely,  it 
would  actually  be  increased  by  one  three-hundredth  part, 
since  the  annual  amount  of  heat  is  inversely  proportional 
to  the  minor  axis  of  the  earth's  orbit.  It  is  also  true 
that  while  the  sun's  intensity  during  the  northern  winter 
would  be  diminished  one-fifth,  the  duration  of  the  season 
would  be  prolonged  forty-four  days  beyond  its  present 
length,  and  would  be  thirty-six  days  greater  than  the 
duration  of  the  summer.  Thus  not  only  would  the  win- 
ter heat  be  diminished,  but  the  diminution  would  be  pro- 
longed. This  would,  indeed,  secure  the  same  absolute 
aggregate  of  winter  heat  as  at  present;  and  this  conclu- 
sion is  as  far  as  Mr.  Croll's  predecessors  went  in  the  in- 
vestigation of  this  problem.  The  total  amount  of  winter 
heat  being  the  same,  its  total  effect,  they  argued,  would 
be  the  same.  Mr.  Croll's  merit  consists  in  taking  into 
account  the  effect  of  a  diminished  daily  intensity,  and  of 
the  extension  of  this  through  a  longer  period.  In  all 
climatic  investigations,  as  is  shown  in  another  chapter  of 
this  work,  the  means  of  short  periods  are  quite  as  im- 
portant as  the  means  for  long  periods.  It  is  the  extreme 
cold  of  winter  which  conditions  the  growth  of  vegetation, 


188  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

not  the  mean  cold  or  aggregate  heat  of  the  season.  It  is 
the  extreme  of  humidity  or  dryness  which  determines 
whether  crops  shall  fail,  not  the  aggregate  rain-fall  for 
the  year  or  for  the  season. 

So,  in  this  case,  Mr.  Croll  perceived  that  the  diminished 
intensity  of  the  sun's  rays  during  winter  would  increase 
the  tendency  to  snowy  precipitation.  Five  degrees  of 
temperature  often  decide  whether  precipitation  shall  be 
in  the  form  of  rain  or  snow.  The  wintry  days  in  a  time 
of  extreme  eccentricity  would  therefore  be  more  abun- 
dantly characterized  by  snow-falls.  In  this  case  the  very 
prolongation  of  the  winter  season,  while  bringing  the  ag- 
gregate of  solar  heat  up  to  the  average,  would  only  pro- 
long the  period  of  snowy  accumulations.  Both  causes, 
then,  would  contribute  to  an  increased  amount  of  snow. 
The  conclusion  is  that  the  direct  effect  of  a  coincidence 
of  the  winter  solstice  with  aphelion,  during  a  period  of 
high  eccentricity,  would  be  the  accumulation  during  each 
winter  of  a  vast  amount  of  snotv,  stretching  many  degrees 
farther  from  the  pole  than  the  snow-cap  of  our  present 
winters. 

But  when  the  short,  hot  summer  should  succeed,  would 
not  the  snow-cap  be  removed  to  as  great  an  extent  as 
under  the  actual  circumstances?  This  is  a  critical  ques- 
tion. Mr.  Croll  maintains  that  it  would  not;  and  the 
second  chief  characteristic  of  his  investigations  consists  in 
his  elucidation  of  the  reasons  for  affirming  that  the  short, 
hot  summer,  at  time  of  perihelion  in  extreme  eccentricity, 
would  not  undo  the  wintry  work  of  a  long,  cold  aphelion. 

Let  it  be  the  northern  hemisphere  which  has  its  winter 
solstice  in  aphelion  during  a  period  of  high  eccentricity. 
The  intense  summer  rays  falling  upon  continents  clothed 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  189 

with  a  thick  mantle  of  snow  would  be  largely  expended 
in  the  conversion  of  snow  into  water.  As  long  as  the 
general  covering  of  snow  should  remain,  no  intensity  of 
solar  rays  could  elevate  the  climatic  temperature  much 
ahove  the  freezing  point  of  water.  The  atmosphere  in 
northern  regions  is  nearly  diathermanous,  and  would  not 
be  warmed  by  the  passage  of  the  sun's  rays;  and  the  heat 
striking  the  snow  would  be  converted  into  mechanical 
energy  instead  of  accumulating.  Little  compensation, 
therefore,  could  result  from  the  occurrence  of  summer  in 
perihelion.  Observations  made  upon  extensive  snow-cov- 
ered surfaces,  as  in  Greenland,  and  upon  the  Antarctic 
continent,  completely  confirm  these  deductions.  Moveover, 
the  rapid  liquefaction  and  vaporization  of  the  snow  would 
result,  in  so  cold  an  atmosphere,  in  the  formation  of  fogs 
and  clouds,  which  in  turn  would,  by  obstructing  the  solar 
rays,  react  upon  their  cause.  The  annual  climatic  result 
would,  therefore,  be  a  depression  of  the  temperature  of 
the  northern  hemisphere.  The  converse  of  all  these  con- 
ditions would  exist  in  the  southern  hemisphere.  Its  win- 
ters would  be  mild  and  short,  accompanied  by  but  little 
snowy  precipitation,  while  its  summers  would  be  long  and 
comparatively  cool. 

At  the  present  time  the  southern  hemisphere  is  known, 
from  observation,  to  possess  a  lower  temperature  than  the 
northern.  The  state  of  things  supposed  would  be  more 
than  a  reversal  of  the  existing  relations  of  temperature 
in  the  two  hemispheres.  It  becomes  necessary  to  inquire, 
therefore,  what  would  be  the  effect  upon  the  ocean  cur- 
rents of  such  a  transposition  and  change  of  climate;  and 
how  would  the  change  in  ocean  currents  react  upon  cli- 
mate? 


190  SPAKKS   FKOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  involves  the  determi- 
nation of  the  physical  causes  of  ocean  currents.  Since 
the  appearance  of  Maury's  Physical  Geography  of  the  Sea 
it  has  been  generally  conceded  that  the  circulation  of  the 
waters  is  simply  an  interchange  between  the  arctic  and 
inter-tropical  regions,  resulting  from  a  difference  in  densi- 
ties. Mr.  Croll,  however,  has  pointedly  demonstrated  that 
this  hypothesis  is  untenable,  and  that  Maury's  own  rea- 
sonings result  in  mutual  nullification.  Increased  density 
(resulting  from  greater  saltness)  in  intertropical  regions, 
caused  by  excess  of  evaporation,  would  equalize  diminished 
density  (rarefaction)  caused  by  excess  of  heat.  Hence  no 
resultant  diminished  density  in  the  intertropical  regions 
exists  to  initiate  a  flow  of  denser  (colder)  water  from  the 
arctic  regions  ^  and  the  circulation,  which  certainly  is  a 
fact,  cannot  be  explained  by  the  theory  of  Lieutenant 
Maury. 

Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter  has  more  recently  propounded,  and 
defended  with  characteristic  positiveness  and  persistence, 
a  theory  somewhat  different  from  Maury's.  He  appeals 
chiefly  to  the  expansive  effect  of  the  excessive  heat  of  the 
intertropical  regions.  The  expansion  of  the  intertropical 
waters  creates,  as  he  maintains,  a  sort  of  protuberance. 
The  waters,  seeking  always  a  statical  equilibrium,  would 
flow,  superficially,  down  a  gentle  slope,  from  the  equator 
toward  the  poles;  while  this  flow  would  be  compensated 
by  an  undercurrent  setting  from  the  polar  to  the  inter- 
tropical regions.  This  much  vaunted  theory  seems  to  me 
inadequate,  untenable  and  contradictory.  1.  It  takes  no 
account  of  the  influence  of  excessive  evaporation  in  the 
intertropical  regions,  which,  in  a  general  way,  may  be 
assumed  to  reduce  the  volume  of  the  water  quite  as  much 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  191 

as  expansion  would  increase  it ;  so  that  the  equatorial 
protuberance  of  the  waters  is  quite  imaginary.  2.  The 
directions  of  the  superficial  and  deep  currents  are  not 
such  as  would  result  from  a  normal  circulation  like  that 
in  the  atmosphere.  That  is,  the  out-going  currents,  mod- 
ified by  terrestrial  rotation,  and  neglecting  the  influence 
of  continental  barriers,  should  be  toward  the  northeast  and 
southeast  (with  an  eastward  direction  immediately  over 
the  equator)  in  the  upper  portion  of  the  film;  and  the 
returning  currents  should  be  from  the  northeast  and 
southeast  (with  a  westward  direction  over  the  equator)  in. 
the  lower  portion  of  the  film.  Observation  shows,  how- 
ever, that  the  upper  portion  of  the  watery  film  is  charac- 
terized by  movements  coincident  with  those  of  the  lower 
portion  of  the  atmospheric  film.  The  two  sets  of  motions 
cannot,  therefore,  be  traced  separately  to  the  same  phys- 
ical cause.  3.  The  amount  of  expansion  of  the  inter- 
tropical  waters  would  not  be  adequate  to  cause  a  tendency 
to  flow  toward  the  poles.  As  Mr.  Croll  has  shown,  the 
difference  between  the  equatorial  and  polar  temperatures 
of  the  waters  would  disturb  the  equilibrium  by  only  the 
trifling  amount  of  four  and  a  half  feet.  Distribute  this 
between  the  equator  and  the  poles,  and  the  descent  would 
not  be  sufficient  to  overcome  the  viscidity  of  the  water. 
4.  Should  any  intertropieal  protuberance  exist  as  a  result 
of  the  cause  assigned,  and  should  it  produce  a  flow  toward 
the  poles,  the  process  would  only  continue  until  the  pro- 
tuberance should  be  removed.  No  cause  can  be  assigned 
why  the  deeper,  colder  and  heavier  watei4  should  rise  into 
the  lighter,  and  reproduce  the  protuberance.  That  is, 
the  water,  however  rarefied,  would  reach  a  state  of  statical 
equilibrium,  and  remain  so  thereafter.  It  may  fairly  be 


192  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

inferred,  therefore,  from  the  four  considerations  just  pre- 
sented, that  the  circulation  of  the  waters  of  the  sea  is  not 
caused  directly,  as  the  circulation  in  the  atmosphere  is 
caused.  We  might,  of  course,  recognize  the  existence  of 
a  necessary  tendency  to  a  circulation  of  the  waters,  iden- 
tical with  that  of  the  air,  and  proceeding  from  the  same 
cause.  But  the  actual  cii'culation  is  one  which  demon- 
strates the  existence  of  some  influence  which  more  than 
countervails  such  a  primary  tendency,  and  establishes 
identical,  instead  of  contrary,  movements  in  the  films  of 
water  and  air  which  are  in  contact  with  each  other.  On 
physical  principles,  however,  it  does  not  appear  that  a 
circulation  would  be  established  in  a  body  of  water  through 
the  simple  application  of  a  warming  influence  at  the  upper 
surface. 

This  coincidence  between  oceanic  currents  and  prevail- 
ing winds  is,  indeed,  so  complete  as  to  suggest  a  causal 
relation  between  the  atmospheric  and  oceanic  movements. 
The  suggestion  is  further  sanctioned  by  all  we  know  of 
the  power  of  winds  to  move  the  surface  of  the  ocean's 
waters.  Who  has  witnessed  a  storm  at  sea  without  being 
convinced  of  this  power?  Within  a  few  years  an  easterly 
wind  has  so  piled  up  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
along  its  western  border  as  to  inundate  and  devastate 
entire  cities  and  villages.  We  seem  quite  justified,  es- 
pecially in  view  of  the  demonstrated  inadequacy  of  the 
causes  urged  by  Maury  and  Carpenter,  in  pronouncing 
the  syste'm  of  prevailing  winds  the  physical  cause  of  the 
system  of  currents. 

Now,  it  is  apparent,  in  the  next  place,  that  the  force 
of  the  winds  —  the  "  trades,"  for  example  —  is  determined 
by  the  difference  of  temperature  between  the  polar  and 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  193 

the  equatorial  regions.  If,  furthermore,  the  cold  of  the 
arctic  regions  equals  that  of  the  antarctic,  the  northern 
trades  will  meet  the  southern  trades  at  the  equator,  and 
the  equatorial  current  will  flow  westward  midway  between 
the  tropics.  If,  as  at  present,  the  cold  of  the  southern 
hemisphere  is  in  excess,  the  southeast  trades  will  possess 
greatest  force,  and  pass  to  the  north  of  the  equator,  de- 
termining the  position  of  the  equatorial  current  somewhat 
nearer  to  the  northern  tropic  than  to  the  southern.  If,  on 
the  contrary,  the  cold  of  the  northern  hemisphere  should, 
as  we  have  supposed,  under  the  influence  of  high  eccen- 
tricity, become  considerably  in  excess  of  the  cold  of  the 
southern  hemisphere,  the  equatorial  current  would  be 
shifted  to  some  latitude  south  of  the  equator. 

The  configuration  of  the  continents  is  such  that  the  po- 
sition of  the  equatorial  current  exerts  a  most  important 
influence  upon  the  direction  of  its  trend  out  of  the  torrid 
zone.  At  the  present  time,  for  instance,  with  this  current 
a  few  degrees  north  of  the  equator,  the  larger  portion  of 
it  is  deflected  northward  by  the  shore  of  South  America; 
and  passing  through  the  Caribbean  Sea  and  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  issues  as  the  Gulf  Stream,  which  diagonally  crosses 
the  North  Atlantic,  and  impinges  upon  the  shores  of  West- 
ern Europe.  Its  movement  across  the  Atlantic  is  aided, 
and  we  may  well  believe  is  caused,  by  the  prevailing 
westerly  winds  of  the  North  Temperate  Zone.  With  the 
equatorial  current  flowing  as  far  south  of  the  equator  as 
would  be  implied  in  the  extension  of  the  persistent  snow- 
cap  of  the  northern  hemisphere,  the  contact  of  the  current 
with  the  coast  of  South  America  would  take  place  to  the 
south  of  Cape  St.  Roque,  and  its  deflection  would  be  into 
the  South  Atlantic.  Whatever  influence  the  Gulf  Stream 
13 


194  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

at  present  exerts  upon  the  climate  of  the  northern  hemis- 
phere would,  on  the  hypothesis  of  an  extended  northern 
snow-cap,  be  completely  withdrawn. 

To  what  does  this  influence  amount?  Mr.  Croll  has 
shown  that  about  one-fifth  of  all  the  heat  possessed  by 
the  waters  of  the  North  Atlantic,  within  the  limits  of  the 
North  Temperate  Zone,  is  derived  from  the  Gulf  Stream. 
According  to  Dove,  the  mean  temperature  of  London  is 
10°  above  the  normal  temperature  of  that  parallel  of  lati- 
tude. This  excess  has  been  justly  attributed  to  the  influence 
of  the  Gulf  Stream.  But  this  by  no  means  measures  the 
absolute  influence  of  the  Gulf  Stream.  This  current,  with 
the  other  outgoing  currents  from  the  tropical  zone,  raises 
the  general  temperature  of  the  North  Temperate  Zone, 
so  that  the  normal  temperature  of  the  London  parallel  is 
30°  above  the  temperature  which  would  be  normal  were 
all  the  ocean  currents  arrested.  The  absolute  influence 
of  the  Gulf  Stream  upon  the  climate  of  London  is  repre- 
sented, therefore,  by  30°+10°=40°.  A  depression  of  the 
mean  temperature  of  London  to  this  extent  would  consti- 
tute a  serious  modification  of  its  climate. 

Now,  in  accordance  with  the  theory  here  under  con- 
sideration, the  reduction  of  London  temperature  which 
must  result  from  the  arrest  of  the  Gulf  Stream  would 
take  place  precisely  when  the  intensity  of  the  solar  radi- 
ation would  be  diminished  one-fifth,  and  the  winter  season 
prolonged  36  days.  Let  these  three  causes  of  a  climatic 
chill  concur,  and  it  becomes  easy  to  admit  that  the  wintry 
precipitation  of  Great  Britain  and  all  northern  Europe 
must  be  in  the  foi-m  of  snow,  and  in  such  amounts  as  to 
outlast,  like  the  living  Alpine  glaciers,  the  dissolving  ac- 
tion of  the  intensest  summer  sun.  We  seem,  therefore,  to 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  195 

have  discovered,  in  high  eccentricity,  a  cosmical  cause  ca- 
pable of  putting  in  action  such  terrestrial  agencies  as  must 
necessarily  lead  to  the  extensive  glaciation  of  the  north- 
ern and  southern  hemispheres  alternately. 

This  conclusion  affords  us  a  glimpse  into  the  possible 
future  of  the  course  of  civilization.  When,  in  some  re- 
mote coming  age,  the  softening  influence  of  the  Gulf 
Stream  shall  be  transferred  from  the  western  shores  of 
Europe  to  the  eastern  shores  of  Patagonia,  the  climate  of 
Great  Britain  will  return  to  the  condition  determined  by 
the  fundamental  astronomical  factors  of  climate.  What 
this  condition  is  may  be  understood  from  the  present  cli- 
mates of  other  regions  in  the  same  zones  of  latitude,  and 
not  influenced  by  oceanic  currents, —  Athabasca,  Labrador, 
Tobolsk  in  Siberia,  and  Central  Kamtchatka.  Then  the 
Falkland  Islands  and  Tierra  del  Fuego  will  acquire  the 
present  climate  of  Great  Britain.  London  will  have  dwin- 
dled to  a  whaling  station  in  the  icy  seas  of  the  far  north. 
Another  London  will  have  sprung  up  on  the  genial  shores 
of  Falkland;  another  Paris  will  have  been  built  on  the 
Straits  of  Magellan,  and  all  the  centers  of  human  civili- 
zation and  industrial  activity  will  have  been  transferred 
to  the  southern  hemisphere.  The  lands  of  the  north  will 
have  been  borne  down  by  a  load  of  arctic  ice,  beneath  the 
cold  waters  of  the  North  Atlantic,  and  the  now  submerged 
continents  of  the  south  will  have  been  disburdened  of  their 
secular  glaciers,  so  as  to  rise  up  and  offer  a  new  theater 
for  the  activities  and  further  progress  of  the  human 
species. 

The  present  theory  of  glacial  periods  affords  us  a  clew 
to  the  solution  of  the  difficult  problem  of  geological  time. 
The  epochs  of  high  eccentricity  are  susceptible  of  deter- 


196  SPARKS   FEOM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ruination  by  mathematical  analysis.*  The  results  of  cal- 
culation show  that  a  period  of  high  eccentricity  termi- 
nated about  80,000  years  ago,  and  another  period  about 
720,000  years  ago.  To  which  of  these  shall  we  refer  the 
Glacial  Period  of  Post-Tertiary  time?  Certain  geologists, 
impressed  by  the  vastness  of  geological  intervals,  would 
decide  promptly  in  favor  of  the  remoter  epoch.  But,  as 
we  have  stratigraphical  evidence  of  the  occurrence  of  an 
earlier  glacial  period  in  Miocene  time,  the  date  of  this 
would  be  removed  back  to  the  next  preceding  period  of 
high  eccentricity,  2,500,000  years  ago.  The  admission  of 
such  an  interval  since  Miocene  time  would  set  back  the 
commencement  of  sedimentation  beyond  100,000,000  years, 
which,  as  Sir  William  Thomson  has  demonstrated,  is  the 
largest  interval  which  can  be  admitted,  according  to  the 
laws  of  cooling,  since  the  commencement  of  terrestrial  in- 
crustration.f 

We  have  then  to  examine  whether  an  interval  of  80,- 
000  years  is  sufficient  for  the  whole  amount  of  denuda- 
tion which  the  continents  have  suffered  since  the  Glacial 
Period.  An  ingenious  investigation,  instituted  by  Mr.  Croll, 
shows  that  the  actual  denudation  is  not  less  than  one 
foot  in  six  thousand  years.  If  we  assume  the  Glacial 

*  See  especially  Stockwell,  Smithsonian  Contributions  to  Knowledge,  xviii ; 
Croll,  Climate  and  Time,  ch.  iv,  xix;  R.  W.  McFarland,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.,  Ill, 
xi,  456. 

tThe  interval  since  the  last  decline  of  continental  glaciers,  judging  from 
the  comparative  amount  of  sedimentation  and  other  geological  results,  is  not 
over  four  tenths  of  one  per  cent  of  the  whole  time  since  the  beginning  of  in- 
crustation. Authorities  differ  widely  as  to  the  possible  length  of  that  time 
Professor  Newcomb  says  the  total  mass  of  the  sun  would  cool  from  its  present 
condition  to  a  body  as  dense  as  the  earth  in  twelve  million  years;  and  that  not 
over  ten  million  years  can  have  elapsed  since  the  heat  of  the  sun  was  too  great 
to  permit  water  to  exist  on  our  planet.  With  such  views  it  is  improbable  that 
Post  Tertiary  time  amounts  to  more  than  61,000  years,  or  Post  Glacial  time  to 
more  than  30,000  years. 


GEOLOGICAL  SEASONS.  197 

Period  to  have  terminated  720,000  years  ago,  the  denuda- 
tion in  the  intervening  time  must  have  amounted  to  120 
feet,  which  Mr.  Croll  thinks  would  imply  the  removal  of 
all  the  detrital  deposits  of  the  continental  glacier.  They 
have  not  been  thus  removed,  and  consequently  720,000 
years  is  too  high  a  figure.  If  we  assume  the  Glacial 
Period  to  have  terminated  80,000  years  ago,  then  13  feet 
of  rock,  or  18  feet  of  drift,  must  have  been  removed  from 
the  whole  face  of  the  continents  ;  and  this,  according  to 
good  authority,  is  all  that  has  been  done.  My  own  judg- 
ment of  the  evidences  is  that  the  rate  of  denudation  is 
greater  than  has  been  assumed  ;  and  hence  I  must  con- 
sider 80,000  years  as  abundantly  adequate  for  all  the 
post-glacial  erosions.  This  opinion  is  confirmed  by  what 
we  have  observed  of  changes  in  progress  before  our  eyes; 
in  the  recession  of  glaciers,  the  transportation  of  soils, 
the  filling  of  lakes,  and  the  shifting  of  river-channels,  as 
well  as  in  the  disappearing  relics  of  the  continental 
glaciers,  hidden  in  mountain  gulches  and  rocky  crevices, 
or  slowly  wasting  beneath  accumulations  of  common 
drift.* 

I  stated  that  northern  oscillations  of  level  are  to  be 
regarded  rather  as  consequences  than  as  causes  of  north- 
ern glaciation;  and  I  have  alluded  already  to  a  submer- 
gence of  northern  lands  as  an  accompaniment  of  the  next 
general  glaciation  of  the  north  temperate  zone.  Let  us 
return  to  this  for  a  moment.  The  formation  of  an  ex- 
tensive ice-cap  about  either  pole,  and  its  relative  diminu- 
tion about  the  other,  must  have  a  tendency  to  displace 
the  earth's  center  of  gravity  toward  the  loaded  pole. 
Beneath  a  film  of  water  free  to  adjust  itself  as  the  ocean 

*The  author  has  more  fully  considered  this  subject  in  Preadamites,  ch.  xxvii. 


198  SPAEKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMEB. 

is,  with  reference  to  the  preservation  of  the  old  center  of 
gravity,  the  displacement  would  not  actually  occur.  The 
protruding  polar  ice  would  press  the  unyielding  core  of 
the  earth  through  the  spheroidal  shell  of  water  suffi- 
ciently to  conserve  the  position  of  the  center  of  gravity. 
But  the  incidental  result  would  be  a  relative  subsidence 
of  the  loaded  pole  and  an  emergence  of  the  opposite  one. 
These  deductions  are  in  perfect  accordance  with  observed 
geological  facts.  These  show  that  a  general  northern 
subsidence  was  associated  with  the  glaciation  of  the 
northern  hemisphere.  The  deduction  is  also  in  accord 
with  the  present  condition  of  the  south  polar  regions.  If 
the  northern  hemisphere  is  at  present  in  the  enjoyment 
of  its  geological  summer,  the  southern  must  be  in  the 
midst  of  its  geological  winter.  The  southern  hemisphere 
must  be  now  in  a  state  of  glaciation;  and,  in  accordance 
with  what  I  have  just  said  of  the  displacement  of  the 
earth's  center  of  gravity  by  the  accumulated  ice,  the 
south  polar  regions  must  be  many  feet  lower,  relatively 
to  the  sea-level,  than  they  were  during  the  southern  geo- 
logical summer;  that  is,  the  lands  of  the  southern  hemi- 
sphere must  be  extensively  submerged.  That  they  are 
actually  submerged  is  a  fact  of  observation.  Commander 
Wilkes,  of  the  United  States  Exploring  Expedition,  coasted 
seventeen  hundred  miles  along  a  barrier  of  ice-cliffs  lying 
under  the  Antarctic  circle.  These  cliffs  must  rest  on  solid 
land;  and  some  thousands  of  years  hence,  when  the  Ant- 
arctic summer  returns,  the  burden  of  ice  may  be  removed; 
those  submerged  lands  may  rise  again  above  the  surface; 
the  southern  extremity  of  South  America  may  extend  it- 
self to  the  Falkland  and  other  contiguous  islands;  Wilkes' 
Land,  Victoria  Land  and  Graham's  Land  may  become  as 


GEOLOGICAL   SEASONS.  199 

accessible  as  Alaska ;  a  new  continental  connection  may 
stretch  across  the  South  Pacific.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
American  Arctic  archipelago  may  become  submerged;  the 
sea  may  cover  the  larger  part  of  British  America  and 
Siberia,  and  the  civilization  which  for  four  thousand  years 
has  distinguished  the  northern  hemisphere  may  be  trans- 
ferred to  the  southern. 

Another  outcome  of  this  cosmical  theory  of  terrestrial 
glaciation  possesses,  at  least,  a  scientific  interest.  As  the 
periods  of  high  eccentricity  must  continue  from  50,000 
to  75,000  years,  the  coincidence  of  the  winter  solstice  with 
the  aphelion  must  occur  at  two  or  three  epochs  during  a 
term  of  high  eccentricity;  and  these  epochs  would  alter- 
nate with  coincidences  between  winter  solstice  and  peri- 
helion. That  is,  two  or  three  epochs  of  intense  glaciation 
must  occur  during  one  term  of  high  eccentricity,  separated 
by  interglacial  epochs  of  milder  temperature.  Phenomena 
precisely  answering  to  this  deduction  are  believed  to  pre- 
sent themselves  in  connection  with  the  deposits  of  the 
Glacial  Period  of  geology.  To  say  no  more,  geologists 
now  generally  recognize  at  least  one  interglacial  period 
during  the  progress  of  the  last  great  ice-age. 


THE  CLIMATE  OF  THE  LAKE  REGION.' 


/""CLIMATE  is  constituted  chiefly  of  temperature,  hu- 
^-^  rnidity  and  winds.  Under  average  conditions,  tem- 
perature is  by  far  the  most  important  of  the  three.  So 
far  as  our  bodily  organs  are  concerned,  it  is  chiefly  the 
sensible  temperature  which  is  affected  by  changes  in  the 
humidity  and  movements  of  the  atmosphere.  In  warm 
weather  an  increase  of  humidity  is  equivalent  to  an  in- 
crease of  heat;  in  cold  weather  it  produces  the  sensible 
effects  of  a  diminution  of  heat.  The  extremes  of  tempera- 
ture are,  consequently,  most  felt  in  humid  climates. 

Winds,  by  promoting  evaporation,  and  a  consequent 
drying  of  the  soil,  though  they  tend  primarily  to  the 
production  of  humidity,  result  speedily  in  a  partial  ex- 
haustion of  the  sources  of  moisture,  and  a  consequent 
aridity  of  the  atmosphere,  which  diminishes  the  sensible 
effects  of  temperature.  Their  direct  influence  upon  sensi- 
ble temperature  is  far  greater.  A  movement  of  the 
atmosphere  is  always  cooling,  even  though  the  tempera- 
ture be  nearly  that  of  the  blood.  This  effect  is  produced 
largely  by  the  promotion  of  evaporation  from  the  skin. 
In  cold  weather  it  is  due  partly  to  the  penetration  of  our 
clothing  by  portions  of  air  impelled  through  every  pore 
by  the  pressure  of  other  portions  behind  them.  At  all 
tempei-atures  winds  also  exert  an  actual  cooling  influence 
by  the  promotion  of  evaporation,  during  which  large 

*  Based,  in  part,  by  permission,  on  an  article  contributed  to  Harpers  Magazine. 


THE   CLIMATE    OF  THE   LAKE    REGION.  201 

quantities  of  heat  pass  into  the  "  latent "  state.  In  treat- 
ing, consequently,  of  the  climate  of  the  Lake  Region  it 
is  the  temperature  element  to  which  we  invite  especial 
attention. 

The  climate  of  the  Lake  Region  presents  some  pecu- 
liarities of  extreme  interest.  They  originate  in  the  pres- 
ence of  vast  bodies  of  water  in  the  midst  of  a  wide  conti- 
nental area.  The  Great  Lakes  of  the  interior  have  long 
been  recognized  as  exerting  a  certain  climatic  influence. 
Allusion  has  been  made  to  this  in  the  meteorological  papers 
of  the  late  Secretary  Hem~y,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institu- 
tion, by  Mr.  Loren  Blodget,  in  his  great  work  on  the 
Climatology  of  the  United  States,  and  at  an  earlier  period 
by  Humboldt  and  others.  This  knowledge,  however,  has 
heretofore  been  little  more  than  a  deductive  conclusion  or 
presumption.  Mr.  Blodget's  isothermal  lines  march  across 
the  peninsula  of  Michigan,  and  across  the  entire  lake 
region,  as  if  the  whole  surface  were  one  unbroken  land 
area.  Still  cruder  is  the  isothermal  chart  of  the  United 
States,  "  as  determined  by  the  Smithsonian  Institution,"  * 
and  published  a  year  or  two  earlier  than  Blodget's  work. 
It  will  be  understood,  as  a  necessary  inference,  that  the 
charts  based  on  the  army  observations,!  as  well  as  all 
previous  attempts  at  isothermal  charts,  fail  totally  to  detect 
the  local  climatic  influence  which,  as  we  now  know,  bends 
the  isothermal  lines  of  the  Michigan  peninsula  in  the  most 
extraordinary  manner.  Before  the  investigations  made 
by  the  present  writer,  almost  no  exact  comparative  obser- 
vations had  been  made  in  such  form  as  to  reveal  the  great 

*  Patent  Office  Report  for  1856.    Agriculture,  Plate  iv. 

t  Army  Meterological  Register,  1855.  It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  our 
obligations  to  the  army  officers  who  planned  and  executed  the  extended  series 
of  observations  taken  at  the  military  posts  of  the  United  States. 


202  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

influence  of  the  lakes.  Dr.  Jared  P.  Kirtland,  of  Cleve- 
land, had  published  a  note  on  the  influence  of  Lake  Erie; 
but,  aside  from  the  phenomena  connected  with  the  growth 
of  vegetation,  and  the  presence  of  southern  birds  and  in- 
sects, he  recorded  no  exact  data  beyond  a  few  single  obser- 
vations.* He  states  that  killing  autumnal  frosts  are  about 
a  month  later  on  the  lake  shore  than  in  the  interior,  and 
that,  in  a  case  of  extreme  cold,  the  thermometer  marked 
about  six  degrees  higher  at  Cleveland  than  at  points  some 
miles  back  from  the  lake.  Until  within  a  few  years  ob- 
servations did  not  exist  from  which  the  influence  of  the 
lakes  could  be  deduced  in  any  numerical  form.  But  un- 
der the  Smithsonian  system  continued  for  many  years, 
and  more  lately  adopted,  to  some  extent,  by  the  Agri- 
cultural Bureau,  an  aggregate  of  data  has  resulted  which, 
combined  with  the  observations  of  the  United  States  Lake 
Survey,  and  with  meteorological  tables  in  the  possession  of 
private  parties,  has  enabled  the  writer  for  the  first  time 
to  eliminate,  and  express  in  a  series  of  isothermal  curves, 
the  proper  influence  of  the  Great  Lakes  —  especially  Lake 
Michigan  —  in  modifying  the  climate  of  each  season,  of  the 
whole  year,  and  of  each  month  in  the  year.  It  is  believed 
the  general  purport  of  the  tables  and  charts  can  be  made 
intelligible  to  the  general  reader. f 

*  J.  P.  Kirtland,  Amer.  Jour,  ScL,  II,  xiii,  215  and  294. 

t  Memoirs  on  this  subject  by  the  present  writer  maybe  found  as  follows: 
"  The  Grand  Traverse  Region:  a  report  on  the  Geological  and  Industrial  Re- 
sources of  the  Counties  of  Antrim,  Grand  Traverse,  Benzie  and  Lfelanaw  in  the 
Lower  Peninsula  of  Michigan,  8vo,  82  pp.  with  Map  and  an  Appendix  of  16  pp. 
on  Palaeontology,  1866;  The  fruit-bearing  Belt  of  Michigan,  Proc.  Amer. 
Association,  1866,  pp.  84-89;  The  Isothermals  of  the  Lake  Region,  Proc. 
Amer.  Assoc.,  1870,  pp.  106—117;  Report  on  the  Progress  of  the  State  Geological 
Survey  of  Michigan,  Lansing,  1871 ;  Walling's  Atlas  of  Michigan,  1873 ;  Michigan  : 
being  Condensed  Popular  Sketches  of  the  Topography,  Climate  and  Geology  of 
the  Stale,  8vo,  131  pp.  1873;  Zeilschrifl  der  »sterreichischen  GeseUschaft  fur  Me- 
teoro/ogie,  vol.  vii,  p.  351  and  viii,  p.  40,  February  1, 1873;  The  Climate  of  Mich- 


THE   CLIMATE   OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  203 

The  temperature  of  the  earth's  surface,  and  all  those 
incidents  of  climate  conditioned  by  temperature,  are  de- 
termined by  the  solar  energy.  It  is  indeed  true  that  the 
earth's  interior  exists  in  a  highly-heated  condition,  and  we 
must  probably  admit  that  parts  of  the  central  portion  still 
remain  in  a  molten  state.  In  any  event,  the  interior  can 
only  be  in  a  solid  state  as  the  consequence  of  pressure 
sufficient  to  counteract  the  liquefying  tendency  of  intense 
heat.  But  notwithstanding  the  intensity  of  the  internal 
heat,  very  exact  experiments  seem  to  have  proved  that  the 
central  heat  is  escaping  to  the  surface  with  such  extreme 
slowness  that  the  superficial  temperature  is  affected  to  a 
barely  appreciable  extent  from  this  cause. 

The  total  amount  of  heat  received  by  the  earth  from 
the  sun  varies  with  the  distance  between  the  two  bodies. 
As  the  form  of  the  earth's  orbit  is  an  ellipse  instead  of  a 
circle,  while  the  sun  occupies  one  of  the  centers  or  foci, 
the  earth  approaches  considerably  nearer  the  sun  in  one 
extremity  of  its  orbit  than  in  the  other.  The  difference 
in  the  distances  is  about  three  millions  of  miles,  while  the 
mean  distance  is  about  ninety- two  and  a  third  millions  of 
miles.  In  consequence  of  the  diminished  distance  of  the 
earth  from  the  sun  at  perihelion,  the  intensity  of  the  sun's 
rays  is  three  and  one-third  per  cent  greater  than  the  mean 
intensity.  At  aphelion  his  intensity  is  three  and  one-third 
per  cent  less  than  the  mean. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  and  one  of  momentous  conse- 
quence to  our  race,  that  the  annual  period  of  greatest 
intensity  occurs  during  the  winter  of  the  northern  hemis- 

igan,  in  Annual  Report  of  the  State  Horticultural  Society  for  1880.  See,  also, 
S.  B.  McCracken ;  The  State  of  Michigan,  embracing  sketches  of  its  History,  Posi- 
tion, Resources  and  Industries,  1876,  8vo,  136  pp.;  and  Dr.  II.  F.  Lyster,  Sixth 
Annual  Report  of  the  Secretary  of  tht  Slate  Boardof  Health  of  the  State  of  Mich- 
igan, pp.  167-250. 


204  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

phere,  and  the  period  of  least  intensity  during  our  sum- 
mer. The  effect  must  be  to  mitigate  the  extremes  of  both 
seasons.  As  the  southern  hemisphere  experiences  the  re- 
frigerating effect  of  diminished  distance  during  its  winter, 
the  limits  of  the  uncultivable  and  uninhabitable  zone  would 
be  removed  considerably  farther  from  the  south  pole  than 
they  are  from  the  north  pole,  were  it  not  for  the  fact  that 
the  larger  proportion  of  watery  surface  in  the  southern 
hemisphere  prevents  that  hemisphere  from  accumulating 
or  losing  heat  as  rapidly  as  the  broad  continental  surfaces 
of  the  northern  hemisphere.  In  the  course  of  some  thou- 
sands of  years,  however,  all  this  will  be  reversed.*  The 
effects  of  such  a  cosmic  change  of  climate  upon  the  popu- 
lations of  the  northern  hemisphere  must  be  literally  of  a 
revolutionary  character, —  like  that  of  which  a  faint  remi- 
niscence is  retained  in  the  Zend  Avesta. 

The  foregoing  considerations  concern  only  the  aggre- 
gate amount  of  heat  and  light  received  by  the  earth  as  a 
whole.  The  actual  heating  and  illuminating  effects  of  the 
sun  at  any  particular  spot  on  the  earth's  surface  vary  also, 
with  the  angle  at  which  the  solar  rays  strike  the  spot. 
This  angle  varies  with  the  seasons  and  the  hours  of  the 
day.  From  whatever  cause  a  variation  in  the  altitude  of 
the  sun  is  produced,  his  heating  power  is  always  propor- 
tional to  the  perpendicular  let-fall  from  the  position  of 
the  sun  upon  the  horizon.  • 

Every  one  knows  that  the  mid-day  sun  is  less  vertical 
in  winter  than  in  summer.  There  is  always  some  lati- 
tude, however,  at  which  the  mid-day  sun  is  exactly  in 
the  zenith.  About  the  21st  of  June  it  is  the  tropic  of 
Cancer.  From  this  time  the  sun  recedes  toward  the  south, 

*See  "Geological  Seasons." 


THE    CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  205 

becoming  vertical  at  the  equator  about  the  21st  of  Sep- 
tember, and  reaching  the  tropic  of  Capricorn  about  the 
21st  of  December;  pouring  his  vertical  rays  upon  that 
tropic  at  about  the  time  when,  from  our  increased  prox- 
imity to  the  sun,  they  possess  the  greatest  inherent  in- 
tensity. The  equator,  being  the  half-way  station  in  the 
annual  journey  of  the  sun  from  tropic  to  tropic  and  back 
again,  receives  a  greater  average  verticality  of  the  solar 
rays  than  any  other  parallel.  The  mean  heat  produced 
at  the  equator  by  the  sun's  influence  has  been  ascertained 
to  be  about  82°.  The  mean  temperature  at  any  parallel 
of  latitude  north  or  south  of  the  equator  is  proportional 
to  the  diameter  of  that  parallel;  or,  in  the  language  of 
science,  it  is  proportional  to  the  co-sine  of  the  latitude. 
From  this  law  we  calculate  that  the  normal  annual  tem- 
perature of  New  York  is  62°.51;  that  of  Chicago  is 
61°.5;  that  of  Mackinac  is  57°.12. 

The  altitude  of  the  sun  varies  also  with  the  hour  of  the 
day,  and  the  solar  intensity  varies  accordingly.  From 
sunrise  to  mid-day  the  intensity  continually  increases,  and 
from  mid-day  to  sunset  it  diminishes.  The  total  heat  of 
the  day  is  the  sum  of  all  the  intensities  from  instant  to 
instant  between  sunrise  and  sunset.  The  value  of  the 
total  depends  both  on  the  magnitude  and,  as  we  may  ex- 
press it,  the  number  of  the  intensities  during  the  day. 
In  other  words,  the  total  amount  of  heat  received  during 
a  day  is  determined  both  by  the  intensity  of  the  solar 
rays  and  the  length  of  the  day.  At  the  equator  the  length 
of  the  day  is  always  twelve  hours.  In  consequence  of  this, 
the  total  daily  heat  received  at  the  equator  is  less  than 
the  total  daily  heat  received  at  places  in  the  northern 
hemisphere,  where,  though  the  solar  intensity  is  less,  the 


206  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

day  is  much  longer.  On  the  15th  of  June,  for  instance, 
the  diurnal  intensity  at  the  equator  is  72°,  while  in  the 
latitude  of  forty  degrees  it  is  90°.  1.  At  the  north  pole, 
where  the  day  may  be  regarded  as  twenty- four  hours  long, 
the  daily  intensity  on  the  15th  of  June  is  97°.6.  The 
amount  of  heat  received  at  the  pole  is  in  excess  of  that 
received  at  a  point  on  the  equator  from  the  10th  of  May 
to  the  3d  of  August, —  a  period  of  eighty-five  days.  On 
the  parallel  of  forty  degrees  the  excess  of  diurnal  heat 
extends  from  the  24th  of  April  to  the  20th  of  August, — 
an  interval  of  one  hundred  and  eighteen  days. 

These  contrasts,  however,  it  must  be  remarked,  apply 
only  to  the  upper  stratum  of  the  atmosphere. 

The  sun's  intensity  at  the  earth's  surface  is  materially 
diminished  by  atmospheric  absorption,  and  this  effect  is 
peculiarly  experienced  by  the  slanting  rays  of  the  polar 
regions. 

So  far  we  have  considered  the  temperature  of  a  locality 
only  in  its  relation  to  astronomical  conditions.  The  nor- 
mal astronomical  temperature  is  almost  always  disguised 
by  numerous  perturbating  influences  of  a  local  character. 
The  influence  of  winds  and  moisture  upon  the  sensible, 
and  also  upon  the  actual,  temperature  has  already  been 
mentioned.  There  are  other  local  conditions,  however, 
which  exert  a  permanent  and  more  important  influence. 
The  most  efficient  of  these  are  altitude  above  the  sea- 
level  and  proximity  to  great  bodies  of  water.  It  is  well 
understood  that  the  temperature  falls  as  we  ascend  above 
the  level  of  the  ocean.  The  rate  of  diminution  of  tem- 
perature varies  with  the  hour  of  the  day,  the  season  and 
the  latitude.  In  temperate  latitudes  it  may  be  taken  at 
one  degree  for  every  333  feet  of  ascent.  Lake  Superior, 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  207 

being  627  feet  higher  than  the  Atlantic,  must  experience 
a  diminution  of  temperature  of  nearly  two  degrees.  At 
the  level  of  Lake  Michigan,  whose  altitude  is  587  feet, 
the  temperature  should  be  one  and  three-fourths  degrees 
less  than  at  the  sea-level.  As  the  mean  height  of  the 
lower  peninsula  of  Michigan  is  about  750  feet  above  the 
sea-level,  its  mean  temperature  is  diminished  two  and 
one-fourth  degrees. 

Of  all  local  influences  aifecting  climate  none  are  more 
efficient  or  more  interesting  to  study  than  the  relations 
of  a  locality  to  extensive  continental  areas,  to  oceanic 
currents,  and  to  large  bodies  of  water.  The  ocean  is  the 
great  equalizer  of  temperatures.  By  a  providential  ar- 
rangement, watery  surfaces  absorb  and  radiate  solar  heat 
less  rapidly  than  land  surfaces.  Continental  areas,  con- 
sequently, become  more  heated  in  summer  and  in  trop- 
ical latitudes,  and  more  refrigerated  in  winter  and  in 
arctic  latitudes,  than  the  oceanic  areas  in  the  same  sea- 
sons and  latitudes.  These  unequal  temperatures  affect 
unequally  the  superincumbent  masses  of  atmospheric  air. 
From  this  source  arise  movements  of  the  air,  which,  com- 
bined with  the  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its  axis,  generate 
trade- winds  and  the  other  prevailing  winds  of  different 
regions.  Prevailing  winds  moving  over  the  surface  of 
the  sea  set  its  waters  in  motion.  Thus  ocean  currents 
are'  established  which,  reflected  northward  and  southwafrd 
by  continental  shores,  serve  to  transfer  tropical  warmth 
to  the  polar  regions  and  polar  cold  to  the  tropical  re- 
gions. From  these  causes  it  happens  that  in  tropical 
latitudes  the  open  sea  is  cooler  than  the  land,  while  in 
polar  latitudes  it  is  warmer  than  the  land.  In  the  tem- 
perate zones  the  temperature  of  the  sea  exceeds  that  of  the 


208  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

land  in  winter  and  falls  below  it  in  summer.  Winds  blowing 
from  the  sea  upon  the  land  carry  with  them  somewhat  of 
the  temperature  of  the  water.  At  Boston,  consequently, 
or  at  New  York,  or  Savannah,  a  sea-breeze  exerts  a  cooling 
influence  in  summer  and  a  warming  one  in  winter. 

The  amount  of  equalizing  influence  exerted  by  the 
ocean  must  obviously  depend  on  the  proximity  of  the 
water  and  the  relative  amount  of  wind  blowing  from  the 
water  over  the  land.  The  interior  of  large  land  areas, 
like  North  America,  Europe  or  Australia,  must  preserve 
nearly  the  temperatures  due  to  the  common  astronomical 
conditions,  and  the  capacity  of  the  land  alone  to  absorb 
and  radiate  solar  heat.  Hence  the  British  Islands  have 
a  more  equable  climate  than  Russia.  The  winters  of 
New  York  are  less  severe  than  those  of  Saint  Louis,  though 
the  latter  is  nearly  two  degrees  farther  south  ;  and  the 
summers  also  are  less  excessive.  But  the  direction  of 
the  prevailing  wind  is  a  circumstance  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance. A  location  by  the  ocean's  shore  would  experi- 
ence extremely  little  of  the  equalizing  influence  of  water 
if  the  movement  of  the  atmosphere  were  always  from  the 
land.  Now,  it  results  from  the  rotation  of  the  earth  that 
the  prevailing  winds  in  the  temperate  zone  are  westerly. 
Those  localities,  therefore,  which  lie  upon  the  eastern 
shores  of  the  oceans  experience  more  the  ameliorating  in- 
fluence of  situation  than  those  upon  western  shores.  The 
climate  of  Western  Europe  is  accordingly  less  subject  to 
extremes  than  that  of  Eastern  North  America.  Western 
Europe  is  more  equable  than  Central  and  Eastern  Europe; 
as  our  Pacific  shores  possess  a  less  rigorous  climate  than 
our  Atlantic  States  in  the  same  latitudes. 

Were   we   to   run    a    line   westward    from    New   York 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  209 

through  all  the  places  which  have  the  same  winter  tem- 
perature as  that  city,  we  should  find  that  in  receding 
from  the  coast  it  would  gradually  deflect  southward. 
Toward  the  center  of  the  continent  the  amount  of  the 
deflection  would  be  considerable;  but  in  approaching  the 
Pacific  coast  we  should  observe  a  very  remarkable  deflec- 
tion toward  the  north.  In  the  elevated  regions  of  the 
Allegheny  and  Rocky  mountains  would,  indeed,  interpose 
the  disturbing  effects  of  increased  altitude,  so  that  our 
isothermal  line  would  be  abruptly  deflected  southward  in 
passing  both  these  mountainous  belts,  but  would  turn 
northward  again  to  its  normal  position  after  passing 
them.  The  winter  isothermal  of  30°  passes  through  New 
Haven  in  latitude  41°  18'.  In  Kansas  this  isothermal  is 
as  far  south  as  Fort  Riley  (39°),  whence  it  bends  north- 
ward to  beyond  the  latitude  of  Fort  Laramie  (42°  40'). 
Experiencing  there  a  sudden  southward  flexure  to  Santa 
Fe  (35°  30')  in  crossing  the  Rocky  Mountains,  it  then 
resumes  its  northward  trend  upon  the  Pacific  slope,  and 
reaches  the  Pacific  shore  only  within  the  limits  of  Alaska. 

The  climatic  influences  of  vast  bodies  of  salt  water,  like 
the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans,  have  long  been  under- 
stood. The  effect  of  small  inland  bodies  of  fresh  water 
in  averting  early  autumnal  frosts  has  also  been  gener- 
ally remarked.  But,  as  before  intimated,  meteorologists 
do  not  seem  to  have  observed  till  recently  that  great 
lakes,  like  Lake  Michigan  and  Lake  Superior,  exert  an 
influence  in  deflecting  the  isothermal  lines  which  is  quite 
comparable  with  that  exerted  by  the  great  oceans  them- 
selves. 

These  lakes,  in  truth,  are  no  inconsiderable  representa- 
tives of  the  ocean.  Lake  Superior  is  460  miles  long  and 
14 


210  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

160  broad,  with  a  mean  depth  of  988  feet.  It  has  a  super- 
ficial area  of  32,000  square  miles.  The  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts might  stretch  herself  out  at  full  length  and  bathe 
in  its  waters.  Even  then  there  would  be  room  enough 
for  Rhode  Island  at  her  feet  and  Connecticut  at  her  head, 
with  Vermont  stretched  along  her  right  and  New  Hamp- 
shire on  her  left.  You  may  take  all  New  England,  except- 
ing Maine,  and  hide  it  bodily  beneath  the  waters  of  this 
single  lake.  Lake  Michigan  is  360  miles  long,  108  broad, 
with  a  mean  depth  of  900  feet,  and  a  superficial  area  of 
20,000  square  miles.  It  contains  18|-  millions  of  cubic 
yards  of  water,  or,  in  other  words,  3,400  cubic  miles. 
You  could  sink  in  this  lake  the  three  states  of  New  Jersey, 
Delaware  and  Maryland.  Lake  Huron,  with  a  length  of 
270  miles,  and  a  breadth  equal  to  that  of  Lake  Superior, 
has  a  mean  depth  of  300  feet,  a  superficial  extent  equal 
to  that  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  would  swallow  up  the 
whole  kingdom  of  Denmark,  including  the  Prussianized 
duchies. 

You  may  embark  on  a  sea-worthy  steamer  at  Chicago, 
and  travel  for  thirty  hours  without  a  sight  of  land;  and, 
after  having  passed  the  Straits  of  Mackinac,  and  entered 
Lake  Superior,  you  may  steam  for  two  days  more  without 
reaching  Superior  City  or  Duluth.  The  voyage  from 
Buffalo  to  Chicago  around  the  lakes  is  a  thousand  miles; 
from  Buffalo  to  Duluth  is  eleven  hundred  miles,  or  three- 
fifths  the  distance  from  Newfoundland  to  Ireland. 

The  majesty  of  the  tempest  is  little  less  on  the  lakes 
than  on  the  Atlantic,  and  the  low,  perpetual  moan  of  the 
breaking  waves  along  the  beach  transports  the  imaginative 
listener  to  Long  Branch  or  Nahant.  During  a  summer 
day  they  breathe,  like  the  ocean,  a  cooling  atmosphere  on 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  211 

every  shore,  while  at  night  the  direction  of  the  breeze  is 
frequently  reversed.  These  are  our  interior  land  and 
sea-breezes.  To  complete  the  analogy,  our  great  inland 
seas  exhibit  the  fluctuations  of  a  diminutive  but  genuine 
lunar  tide. 

It  is  impossible  that  such  enormous  masses  of  water 
should  be  materially  elevated  above  the  mean  temperature 
of  the  year  by  three  months  of  summer  weather,  or  de- 
pressed materially  below  it  by  three  months  of  winter. 
The  land  surfaces  in  the  same  latitudes  attain  far  greater 
extremes  of  cold  and  heat  than  the  lakes.  Two  reasons 
exist  for  this:  first,  watery  surfaces  absorb  and  radiate 
more  slowly;  and  secondly,  the  continued  stirring  of  the 
waters  by  the  winds  mixes  the  surface  temperature  through 
a  depth  of  several  hundred  feet,  while  on  the  land  the 
entire  effect  is  confined  to  a  superficial  zone  of  about 
seventy  to  ninety  feet.  The  normal  mean  annual  tem- 
perature of  the  land  in  the  neighborhood  of  Milwaukee 
is  44°,  and  this  should  be  about  the  mean  temperature  of 
the  water  of  Lake  Michigan.  In  summer  the  Milwaukee 
mean  rises  to  67°,  while  in  winter  it  sinks  to  22°.  The 
water  of  the  lake,  meanwhile,  rises  in  summer  only  to 
46°,  and  sinks  in  winter  only  to  40°.  Winds  from  the 
lake,  therefore,  partaking  largely  of  the  temperature  of 
the  water,  must  exert  a  material  influence  in  equalizing 
the  land  temperatures  of  summer  and  winter.  Still  more, 
in  cases  of  exti-eme  weather,  when  the  land  temperature 
rises  to  95°  or  sinks  to  30°  below  zero,  must  the  amelio- 
rating influence  of  such  a  vast  body  of  water,  holding 
itself  steadily  at  a  somewhat  uniform  tempei'ature,  be 
most  conspicuously  and  most  beneficently  experienced. 

Observations  have  shown  that  even  the  annual  means 


212  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

of  the  regions  contiguous  to  the  lakes  are  somewhat 
raised  by  the  lake  influence.  The  cooling  effect  in  winter 
is  not  equal  to  the  warming  effect  in  summer.  In  other 
words,  the  mean  temperature  of  the  lake  is  a  few  degrees 
higher  than  that  of  the  land.  As  this  fact  cannot  be 
attributed  to  an  influx  of  river  water  from  more  south- 
ern latitudes,  and  would  seem  to  be  only  partially  ex- 
plained by  the  probably  higher  temperature  of  river  waters 
in  the  same  latitudes,  it  remains  to  seek  an  explanation 
of  the  higher  mean  temperature  of  the  lake.  Now,  let  it 
be  remembered  that  the  waters  of  the  lake  penetrate  900 
feet  toward  the  heated  interior  of  the  earth;  and  that  it 
has  been  ascertained  that  on  the  land  every  fifty-five  feet 
of  descent  beneath  the  plane  of  constant  temperature 
brings  us  one  additional  degree  of  heat.  It  will  thus 
appear  that  if  the  depth  of  constant  temperature  in  the 
mean  latitude  of  Lake  Michigan  is  60  feet,  the  water  of 
the  lake  reaches  a  depth  where  the  terrestrial  temperature 
should  be  15°  higher  than  the  constant  temperature  be- 
neath the  land,  which  would  probably  be  about  the  mean 
annual  temperature  of  the  locality.  The  writer  has  ven- 
tured heretofore  to  suggest  that,  though  the  cooling  influ- 
ence of  the  local  annual  mean  must  have  been  felt  by 
the  earth  in  the  bottom  of  the  lake,  it  must  be  still  true 
that  the  bottom  of  the  lake  has  felt  somewhat  the  warm- 
ing influence  of  the  normal  terrestrial  temperature  at 
that  depth.  It  seems,  therefore,  entirely  reasonable  to 
maintain  that  the  heat  of  the  earth's  internal  fires  con- 
tributes something  to  the  excess  of  the  lake's  mean  warmth 
over  the  mean  warmth  of  the  land.  The  great  lake 
may,  therefore,  be  conceived  as  held  in  a  vast  natural 
dish,  which  is  warmed  over  the  imperishable  fire  which 


THE   CLIMATE   OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  213 

we  know  to  be  imprisoned  within  the  earth.  When  the 
temperature  of  the  land  sinks  to  20°  or  30°  below  zero, 
that  of  Lake  Michigan  is  60°  or  70°  higher  ;  and  the 
vapor  which  ascends  from  its  surface  is  the  literal  si- 
militude of  the  steam  rising  from  a  kettle  heated  over 
a  domestic  fire. 

Two  local  factors  enter  into  the  rational  explanation 
of  the  peculiarities  of  the  climate  of  the  lake  region. 
One  of  these  is  the  equable  temperature  of  great  bodies 
of  water,  the  other  is  the  prevailing  direction  of  the  wind. 
To  illusti-ate  the  latter  more  precisely  than  has  been  done, 
let  us  consider  the  peninsula  of  Michigan.  Were  the  at- 
mosphere perpetually  calm,  the  contiguous  land  and  super- 
incumbent atmosphere  would  only  be  very  feebly  warmed 
during  winter  by  direct  radiation  from  the  lake;  and  this 
effect  would  be  more  than  counterbalanced  by  a  perpetual 
land  breeze  as  long  as  the  lake  should  remain  warmer 
than  the  land.  But  the  general  atmosphere  is  always  in 
motion.  Warmed  in  winter,  while  passing  over  the  sur- 
face of  the  lake,  it  conveys  some  part  of  the  lake- warmth 
to  the  land,  and  the  rigor  of  the  cold  becomes  amelio- 
rated, on  the  principle  of  a  hot-air  furnace.  As  the  wind 
by  turns  moves  from  all  directions,  the  lake  exerts  some 
warming  influence  on  all  the  surrounding  land.  This  is 
illustrated  by  the  isothermal  lines  for  the  cold  months, 
which  are  bent  northward  on  approaching  the  lake  from 
either  side.  Evidently  that  side  of  the  lake  which  re- 
reives  most  wind  from  the  lake-surface  will  be  most  im- 
pressed by  the  lake-influence.  Now  it  happens  that  the 
Michigan  side  of  Lake  Michigan  receives  most  lake  winds 
during  the  cold  season,  because,  as  is  well  known,  the 
cold  winds  of  the  region  approach  from  a  westerly  direc- 


214  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

tion.  Thus  in  January,  at  Chicago,  according  to  eleven 
years'  observations,  the  winds  from  the  west  of  the  me- 
ridian are  to  the  winds  from  the  east  of  the  meridian  as 
72  to  5;  at  Milwaukee,  for  thirteen  years,  as  60  to  18; 
at  Manitowoc,  for  eleven  years,  as  67  to  11;  at  Grand 
Haven,  for  one  and  a  half  years,  as  34  to  16.  A  similar 
excess  of  westerly  winds  is  shown  for  all  the  months  of 
the  year  except  April  and  May,  and  especially  the  month 
of  May. 

In  consequence  of  this  prevalence  of  westerly  winds 
the  east  side  of  Lake  Michigan  is  warmed  in  winter  and 
cooled  in  summer.  While,  therefore,  the  winter  mean  at 
Chicago  is  24£°,  that  of  New  Buffalo,  in  the  same  latitude, 
is  28°.  While  that  of  Milwaukee  is  22°,  that  of  Grand 
Haven  is  26°.  While  the  winter  mean  of  Fort  Howard 
is  20°,  and  that  of  Appleton  19°,  the  winter  mean  of 
Traverse  City,  farther  north  than  either,  is  23£°.  In 
autumn,  also,  the  preponderance  of  westerly  winds  raises 
the  mean  temperature  one  or  two  degrees  along  the  south 
half  of  the  lake  shore,  and  three  to  four  degrees  along 
the  northern  half  of  the  shore.  This  is  strikingly  shown 
on  an  isothermal  chart  where  continuous  lines  are  drawn 
from  east  to  west  through  places  having  the  same  au- 
tumnal means.  To  the  west  of  the  lake  region  the  lines 
conform  approximately  to  the  parallels  of  latitude,  but 
over  and  east  of  Lake  Michigan  they  bend  abruptly  north- 
ward. The  autumnal  isotherm  of  46°,  which  passes 
through  Fort  Winnebago,  bends  northward  nearly  to  the 
extreme  point  of  Lake  Michigan,  a  difference  of  latitude 
of  about  185  miles.  The  isotherm  of  47°,  which  passes 
through  Fort  Atkinson,  bends  northward  to  the  Beaver 
islands  192  miles.  The  isotherm  of  48°  is  deflected  north- 


THE   CLIMATE  OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  215 

ward  an  equal  distance.  The  isotherm  of  49°  sweeps 
from  Evanston,  near  Chicago,  to  the  mouth  of  the  Manis- 
tee  river,  a  difference,  of  latitude  of  152  miles.  The  iso- 
therm of  50°  bends  from  Kensington,  south  of  Chicago, 
to  Grand  Rapids,  a  difference  of  latitude  of  97  miles. 
The  favorable  contrast  diminishes  in  the  southern  portion 
of  the  eastern  shore,  since  in  November  the  cold  south- 
westerly winds  either  miss  the  lake  entirely  or  are  held 
at  a  lower  temperature  by  mingling  with  wind  which  has 
not  traversed  the  lake.  These  statements  relate  to  the 
mean  autumn  temperature  of  the  two  sides  of  Lake 
Michigan.  They  show  that  the  autumn  temperatures 
along  the  west  side  are  found  on  the  east  side  from  one 
to  two  hundred  miles  farther  north.  To  put  the  subject 
in  another  light,  an  investigation  of  the  monthly  means 
on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  lake  during  autumn  shows 
that  the  temperature  attained  at  Milwaukee  October  15 
is  not  reached  at  Grand  Haven  until  October  20.  The 
Milwaukee  temperature  of  November  15  is  only  reached 
at  Grand  Haven  November  23.  The  Chicago  temperature 
of  September  15  is  the  same  as  the  New  Buffalo  temper- 
ature of  September  21.  These  comparisons  show  that  the 
warm  season  is  lengthened  on  the  east  side  about  six  to 
eight  days  in  the  autumn.  In  1865  the  first  killing  frost 
in  the  Grand  Traverse  region  was  December  2;  in  1866, 
November  15  ;  in  1867,  November  18.  These  particular 
facts  are  cited  because  they  fell  under  the  writer's  obser- 
vation. 

By  a  singular  and  happy  exception  in  the  prevailing 
direction  of  the  wind,  we  find  that  during  the  month  of 
May  winds  from  the  east  of  the  meridian  preponderate. 
This  is  shown  again  from  an  extensive  series  of  meteor- 


216  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ological  tables,  since  at  Manitowoc  the  easterly  winds  in 
May  are  to  the  westerly  as  37  to  26  ;  at  Milwaukee  as 
62  to  24,  and  in  April  as  52  to  33;  at  Chicago,  including 
north  winds,  which  are  here  lake  winds,  the  ratio  of  lake 
and  land  winds  is  in  May  as  44  to  40.  Now,  in  May,  a 
lake  wind  is  a  chilling  influence,  except  when  the  ther- 
mometer is  sinking  below  the  growing  temperature  for 
vegetation.  It  is  then  an  influence  which  prevents  frost. 
It  follows,  therefore,  that  during  the  mild  days  of  May 
the  eastern  shore  of  the  lake  is  exempt  from  the  chilling 
and  retarding  influence  of  westerly  winds;  while,  during 
a  cold  period,  when,  as  a  rule,  the  wind  is  westerly,  the 
eastern  shore  receives  the  benefit  of  protection  from  frost. 
Thus,  on  the  16th  of  May,  1868,  a  destructive  frost  oc- 
curred throughout  Illinois,  Indiana  and  Ohio,  but  did  no 
damage  in  the  Grand  Traverse  region.  It  is  a  frequent 
occurrence  to  read  of  killing  autumnal  or  vernal  frosts 
in  any  of  the  states  south  or  west  of  Michigan,  while  the 
Michigan  peninsula  remains  completely  exempt.  This 
unique  arrangement  of  the  prevailing  winds  seems 
prompted  by  a  beneficent  regard  for  the  interests  of 
early  vegetation  on  the  eastern  side  of  Lake  Michigan. 
Westerly  winds  cease  to  predominate  only  in  that  month 
when  they  cease  to  be  beneficial  to  Michigan.  And  yet 
even  in  that  month  they  exist  whenever  the  interests  of 
vegetation  demand.  Not  only  do  westerly  winds  cease  to 
predominate  at  the  juncture  when  they  cease  to  be  bene- 
ficial, but  at  the  same  juncture,  the  warmer  land  winds 
from  the  east  of  the  meridian  become  predominant.  Both 
causes  accelerate  vegetation  on  the  east  side  of  the  lake. 
A  study  of  the  means  for  a  series  of  years,  at  places  on 
opposite  sides  of  the  lake,  shows  that  the  temperature  of 


THE   CLIMATE   OP   THE   LAKE   REGION".  217 

Grand  Haven  March  15  is  equal  to  that  of  Milwaukee 
March  21;  that  of  Grand  Haven  April  15  is  equal  to  that 
of  Milwaukee  April  24;  that  of  Grand  Haven  May  15  is 
equal  to  that  of  Milwaukee  May  28.  These  are  not  sin- 
gle instances,  but  comparisons  of  results  of  many  years 
of  accurate  instrumental  observation.  They  show  that  in 
May  Grand  Haven  is  thirteen  days  in  advance  of  Milwau- 
kee. Add  the  thirteen  days  of  growing  weather  gained 
in  spring  to  the  five  days  gained  in  October,  and  we  per- 
ceive that  the  growing  season  is  eighteen  days  longer  at 
Grand  Haven  than  at  Milwaukee.  Every  practical  culti- 
vator knows  that  eighteen  days  often  make  all  the  differ- 
ence between  a  crop  well  ripened  and  perfect  and  a  crop 
immature  and  savorless,  if  not  ruined  by  an  untimely 
freeze. 

This  contrast  is  the  same  in  kind  as  exists  along  the 
whole  length  of  the  two  shores;  but  we  find  it  qualified 
by  two  influences.  First,  the  northern  portion  of  the 
western  shore  receives  a  warming  influence  from  northerly 
winds  approaching  over  Green  Bay  ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  the  greater  expanse  of  water  passed  over  by  westerly 
and  southwesterly  winds  approaching  the  Grand  Traverse 
region  imparts  to  that  region  a  greater  relative  influence 
than  is  felt  by  the  Grand  Haven  region.  Secondly,  the 
southern  portion  of  the  Michigan  shore  of  the  lake  is 
exposed  to  the  unmitigated  sweep  of  southwest  winds, 
which,  in  the  northwestern  states,  are  often  the  coldest 
of  all;  but,  on  the  contrary,  this  region  receives  north- 
westerly, and  even  north,  winds  which  have  swept  over  a 
vast  expanse  of  lake  surface. 

I  have  thus  far  referred  only  to  annual  and  seasonal 
means.  The  longer  the  period  embraced  in  the  compu- 


218  SPARKS    PROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

tation  of  a  mean,  the  more  the  salient  features  of  the 
climate  are  disguised.  The  annual  mean  in  the  Lake 
Region  approximates  that  of  other  districts  in  the  same 
latitude,  since  the  cooling  effect  of  the  lakes  in  sum- 
mer is  neutralized  in  the  annual  mean  by  the  warming 
effect  in  winter.  We  approach  nearer  an  expression  of 
the  local  peculiarities  of  the  climate  by  comparing,  as  we 
have  done,  the  seasonal  means.  But  we  approximate  still 
nearer  an  exhibit  of  the  special  climatic  conditions  by 
making  comparisons  of  monthly  means  —  especially  for 
those  months  whose  temperatures  depart  most  from  the 
annual  mean,  and  from  the  mean  temperature  of  the 
lake  water.  These  months  are  July  and  January. 

If  we  inspect  the  isothermal  chart  for  July  we  shall 
observe  a  series  of  lines  drawn  through  localities  of  equal 
mean  temperatures,  within  the  limits  of  the  region  affected 
by  lake  influence,  and  extending  far  enough  westward  to 
reach  the  general  continental  conditions.  The  first  thing 
which  impresses  one  is  the  extreme  southward  deflection 
of  all  the  lines  in  the  vicinity  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  a 
similar,  though  less  abrupt,  deflection  in  the  vicinity  of 
Lake  Huron.  Tracing,  for  instance,  the  line  of  70°,  we 
find  it  entering  from  the  west  on  the  parallel  of  48°.  Its 
course  is  southeast,  under  the  influence  of  continental 
conditions,  as  far  as  Fort  Ripley,  in  Minnesota,  whence 
it  passes  nearly  eastward  to  the  valley  of  the  Menominee 
River.  Here  it  comes  under  the  decided  influence  of 
Lake  Michigan,  and  rapidly  bends  southward,  passing 
through  Green  Bay  and  Milwaukee,  in  Wisconsin.  Re- 
appearing at  Grand  Haven,  in  the  peninsula  of  Michigan, 
it  trends  almost  directly  northward  to  Traverse  City, 
whence  it  arches  across  the  peninsula  till,  coming  within 


THE   CLIMATE   OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  219 

the  influence  of  Lake  Huron,  it  bends  southward  again 
and  passes  into  Canada,  near  the  southern  extremity  of 
that  lake.  It  passes  thence  in  a  northeasterly  direction 
to  Penetanguishene,  on  Georgian  Bay.  This  isothermal 
is  deflected,  through  the  influence  of  the  lakes,  to  the 
extent  of  5°  of  latitude,  or  350  miles  in  a  straight  line. 
The  general  course  of  all  the  isothermals  from  67°  to  75° 
is  extremely  similar  to  that  just  traced. 

It  follows,  from  these  indications,  that  an  almost 
identical  July  temperature  stretches  along  the  two  shores 
of  Lake  Michigan  from  Chicago  to  Mackinac.  It  appears, 
however,  that  the  immediate  western  shore  is  somewhat 
more  cooled  than  the  immediate  eastern.  This  results, 
as  a  careful  investigation  has  shown,  from  a  slight  pre- 
ponderance of  winds  in  July  from  points  east  of  the 
meridian.  At  Chicago  this  preponderance,  including  north 
winds,  is  as  60  to  33;  at  Milwaukee,  as  48  to  37.  But 
at  Milwaukee  and  northward,  northerly  and  even  north- 
westerly winds  feel  the  influence  of  Green  Bay. 

Further  inspection  of  these  isothermals  discloses  the  fact 
that  the  July  temperature  of  the  peninsula  of  Michigan 
is  about  the  same  as  that  of  the  interior  of  Wisconsin  in 
the  same  latitudes;  but  the  heat  of  the  Mackinac  region 
is  considerably  less  than  that  of  Wisconsin  and  Minnesota 
on  the  same  parallels.  This  accounts  for  the  popularity 
of  Mackinac  as  a  place  of  healthful  summer  resort.  On 
the  contrary,  the  heat  of  the  central  and  southern  portions 
of  the  peninsula  is  equal  to  that  experienced  through  the 
northern  half  of  the  states  of  Indiana  and  Ohio  two  or 
three  degrees  farther  south.  The  July  temperature  of 
Marietta,  Ohio,  is  73£°,  which  is  the  same  as  that  of 
Flint,  and  less  than  that  of  Grand  Rapids,  Michigan. 


220  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Another  effect  of  the  perturbating  influence  of  the  lakes, 
reacting  upon  topographical  and  continental  relations,  is 
to  cause  certain  isothermals  to  divide  and,  by  reuniting, 
to  inclose  detached  areas,  which  stand  like  islands  of  cold 
or  heat.  An  example  of  the  former  exists  in  the  penin- 
sula of  Michigan,  and  one  of  the  latter  in  Iowa.  The 
greater  part  of  Ohio,  however,  seems  to  constitute  an 
island  of  uniform  temperature  in  July,  since  from  Cleve- 
land to  Marietta  and  Portsmouth,  the  mean  is  not  far 
from  73i°. 

The  distribution  of  the  January  isothermals  possesses 
still  greater  interest.  It  is  the  severity  of  our  winter 
climate  rather  than  the  character  of  summer  which,  in 
our  northern  states,  conditions  the  growth  and  health  of 
most  of  our  perennial  exotics,  as  peaches,  apples  and  im- 
proved varieties  of  grapes.  With  a  glance  at  the  chart 
of  January  isothermals,  the  eye  is  first  arrested  by  the 
general  northward  deflection  of  the  lines  in  the  vicinity 
of  Lakes  Michigan  and  Huron.  This  direction  is  the  re- 
verse of  the  July  inflection.  The  isothermal  of  23°,  for 
instance,  which  passes  through  Peoria,  Illinois,  enters  the 
southern  extremity  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  proceeds  di- 
rectly to  Northport,  at  the  mouth  of  Grand  Traverse 
Bay.  It  thence  sweeps  southward  to  Lansing,  when  it 
returns  northward,  under  the  influence  of  Lake  Huron,  to 
Thunder  Bay  Island  and  finally  bends  eastward,  passing 
forty  miles  south  of  Penetanguishene  in  Canada. 

Similarly,  the  isotherm  of  27°  sweeps  from  southwest- 
ern Michigan  through  Springfield,  Illinois,  and  thence  to 
Fort  Riley,  in  Kansas,  near  the  latitude  of  39°.  East- 
ward, the  same  isotherm  strikes  through  Central  Indiana 
and  Ohio.  The  January  climate  of  New  Buffalo  is  as 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  221 

mild  as  that  of  Cincinnati.  Traverse  City  corresponds,  in 
this  respect,  with  Omaha,  Muscatine,  Ottawa  and  Aurora. 
Mackinac  and  Marquette  compare  with  Green  Bay,  Fort 
Winnebago  and  Prairie  du  Chien.  The  isotherm  of  22° 
is  deflected  by  the  influence  of  Lake  Michigan  over  a 
belt  of  four  and  a  half  degrees.  This  is  more  than  300 
miles  in  a  straight  line,  and  is  equal  to  the  distance  from 
Mackinac  to  Fort  Wayne. 

Another  fact  strikingly  exhibited  is  the  difference  be- 
tween the  January  temperatures  along  the  opposite  sides 
of  Lake  Michigan.  The  mean  at  Chicago  is  22^°,  while 
that  of  New  Buffalo,  directly  opposite,  is  30°.  The  mean 
of  Milwaukee  is  20^°,  while  that  of  its  vis-a-vis,  Grand 
Haven,  is  25°.  The  mean  of  Green  Bay  is  19°,  and  that 
of  Appleton  15^°,  while  that  of  Traverse  City  is  22°. 
Greatly  as  the  January  climate  along  the  western  shore 
is  ameliorated  by  the  influence  of  the  lake,  that  along  the 
eastern  shore  is  still  further  ameliorated  to  the  extent 
of  four  to  seven  degrees.  This  contrast  results  from  the 
prevailing  direction  of  the  cold  winds,  which,  in  the  North- 
western States,  is  from  the  west  and  southwest.  The  re- 
sults of  observations  made  in  January  have  already  been 
given.  These  results  embody  all  January  winds  except 
those  directly  from  the  north  or  south. 

At  the  same  time  the  January  climate  along  the  east- 
ern border  of  the  peninsula  of  Michigan  is  not  much 
more  severe  than  that  along  the  western,  though  the 
prevailing  winds  along  the  eastern  shore,  as  in  Wisconsin 
and  Illinois,  are  from  the  west  of  the  meridian,  and 
carry  the  influence  of  Lake  Huron  away  from  the  land. 
This  state  of  things  is  accounted  for  by  three  considera- 
tions. First,  the  influence  of  Lake  Michigan  is  distinctly 


222  SPARKS    FKOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

felt  across  the  entire  peninsula.  The  mean  of  Flint,  for 
instance,  is  four  degrees  above  that  of  Prairie  du  Chien, 
on  the  same  parallel.  The  narrowing  of  the  peninsula 
northward  emphasizes  this  consideration.  Secondly,  Lake 
Huron  exerts  its  proper  influence  upon  the  western 
shore,  which  reinforces  that  brought  from  Lake  Michigan. 
Thirdly,  the  intrusion  of  Saginaw  Bay  into  the  interior 
throws  a  large  area  to  the  east  and  southeast  of  this 
body  of  water.  It  may  also  be  mentioned  that  the  po- 
sition of  this  bay,  and  the  peculiar  bend  of  Lake  Huron 
toward  the  west,  are  such  that  even  north  winds  must 
come  somewhat  tempered  by  these  great  natural  stoves- 
It  is  certainly  a  singular  circumstance  that,  while  Mani- 
towoc,  Milwaukee  and  Chicago,  on  the  west  shore  of 
Lake  Michigan,  have  lake-winds  during  January,  repre- 
sented by  the  numbers  11,  18  and  7  respectively,  Thun- 
der Bay  Island,  Ottawa  Point  and  Fort  Gratiot,  on  the 
west  shore  of  Lake  Huron,  have  winds  from  that  lake 
during  January,  represented  by  the  numbers  51,  86  and 
35.  These  numbers  embrace  north  winds  at  Chicago  and 
the  points  on  Lake  Huron,  and  southwest  winds  at  Ot- 
tawa Point,  as  these  sweep  along  the  axis  of  Saginaw 
Bay. 

The  isothermal  chart  of  the  lake  region  for  January 
exhibits  in  the  country  south  and  southwest  of  Lake  Su- 
perior a  series  of  remarkable  loops.  The  great  isotherm 
of  14°,  for  instance,  coming  down  past  the  head-waters  of 
the  Minnesota  river,  passing  near  Saint  Paul,  and  con- 
tinuing southeastward  to  the  44th  pai-allel,  begins  to  feel 
the  influence  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  bends  northeast 
through  the  region  west  of  Green  Bay  to  the  narrow 
peninsula  north  of  Lake  Michigan,  where,  under  tie  in- 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  223 

fluence  of  Lake  Superior,  it  loops  west  again,  passing 
south  of  Marquette  and  Ontonagon  to  Bayfield  and  Du- 
luth,  whence,  bending  east  a  second  time,  it  passes  near 
Beaver  Bay  in  Minnesota,  and  crossing  Keweenaw  Point 
emerges  upon  Canadian  soil  some  forty  miles  to  the  north 
of  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  The  loop  which  opens  westward  de- 
notes the  position  of  a  zone  of  cold  located  along  the 
elevated  district  which  forms  the  water-shed  between  Lake 
Superior  and  the  Mississippi.  The  axis  of  this  zone,  in- 
stead of  lying  along  the  head -waters  of  the  streams  flow- 
ing north  and  south,  is  crowded  southward,  apparently,  by 
the  influence  of  Lake  Superior.  The  other  loop,  which 
opens  eastward,  is  a  zone  of  warmth  stretching  along  the 
south  shore  of  Lake  Superior  from  Ontonagon  to  the 
Sault  Ste.  Marie.  An  island  of  cold  seems  to  be  located 
in  the  southern  portion  of  the  lower  peninsula  of  Michi- 
gan, and  another  in  northern  Iowa.  An  area  of  uniform 
temperature  stretches  across  middle  Ohio,  as  we  have  al- 
ready seen  to  be  the  case  also  in  July. 

There  is  a  method  of  obtaining  a  still  more  precise, 
and  therefore  more  correct,  expression  of  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  the  climate  of  the  lake  region.  Aver- 
ages of  months  and  seasons  suffice,  indeed,  to  indicate  the 
length  of  the  growing  period  and  the  average  severity  of 
the  winter.  But  there  is  another  aspect  of  climate  which 
possesses  at  least  equal  importance ;  though  in  climatic 
discussions  it  has  been  largely  overlooked.  Published 
tables  give  us  means  of  the  year  and  of  the  several  sea- 
sons, and  their  authors  seem  to  think  that  in  this  they 
have  brought  to  view  all  the  important  elements  of  cli- 
mate which  bear  on  health  and  production  of  crops.  A 
little  reflection,  however,  shows  that  the  extremes  of  climate 


224  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

are  of  equal  importance  with  the  means.  It  signifies 
little  that  the  growing  season  begins  in  March,  if  liabil- 
ity to  killing  frosts  continues  to  the  middle  of  May,  as  in 
Tennessee.  A  mean  October  temperature  of  60°  is  com- 
paratively valueless  after  a  September  freeze.  The  mean 
temperature  of  a  season  may  be  mild,  or  even  delightful, 
at  the  same  time  that  one  or  two  days  have  brought  de- 
structive cold.  One  killing  frost  is  as  bad  as  a  dozen, 
for  vegetation  has  but  one  life  to  destroy.  It  is  the 
liability  to  these  exceptional  temperatures  which  we  must 
know  before  forming  final  judgment  on  the  adaptability 
of  a  district  for  a  particular  crop.  A  winter  which  aver- 
ages mild  may  be  marked,  like  the  climate  of  Saint  Louis, 
by  one,  two  or  three  mornings  destructive  to  everything 
which  would  triumphantly  survive  all  the  rest  of  the 
season.  Every  fruit-raiser  knows  that  it  is  not  the  aver- 
age weather  of  winter  or  spring  which  endangers  his  buds 
or  his  trees.  It  is  the  one  or  two  nights  of  the  whole 
season  which  brings  him  apprehension, —  especially  if  ac- 
companied by  high  wind.  It  is  of  no  consequence  that 
the  winter  mean  of  Saint  Louis  is  33°  and  that  of  Grand 
Haven  21°,  or  of  Traverse  City  24°,  if  the  thermometer 
falls  sometimes  22°  below  zero  at  Saint  Louis  and  never 
sinks  more  than  16°  below  zero  at  Grand  Haven  or 
Traverse  City.  It  is  precisely  against  these  exceptional 
extremes  that  the  great  lakes  exert  their  most  striking 
influence. 

There  are  two  ways  to  consider  extremes  of  climate. 
We  may  consider  the  mean  minimum  of  a  locality,  or  its 
extreme  minimum,  for  a  series  of  years.  There  is  a  low- 
est point  reached  by  the  thermometer  at  each  locality 
every  winter.  Different  winters  may  vary  greatly  in 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE   LAKE    REGION.  225 

the  severity  of  the  coldest  day,  but  we  may  take  the 
average  of  a  series  of  winters.  This  is  the  mean  mini- 
mum. It  indicates  the  lowest  temperature  which  the 
locality  is  as  likely  to  experience  as  to  escape.  Now, 
from  this  point  of  view,  the  climate  of  the  lake  region 
stands  forth  singularly  favored.  If  on  a  map  of  the 
Northwest  we  draw  lines  through  all  the  places  having 
the  same  mean  minimum,  we  shall  be  surprised  to  notice 
to  what  an  extent  all  the  lines  are  bent  northward  along 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  lake.  They  do  not  trend 
east  and  west,  as  they  must  under  the  normal  influence 
of  latitude,  but  they  run  literally  north  and  south  in  the 
vicinity  of  Lakes  Michigan  and  Huron.  The  isotherm  of 
the  mean  minimum  of  fifteen  degrees  below  zero  strikes 
from  Mackinac  through  Manitowoc,  Milwaukee  and  New 
Buffalo,  to  Fort  Riley  in  Kansas,  near  the  parallel  of  39°. 
Here  is  a  deflection  of  nearly  seven  degrees  of  latitude,  or 
about  480  miles  in  a  straight  line.  The  meaning  of 
this  is  that  the  most  excessive  cold  at  Mackinac,  for  a 
period  of  twenty-eight  years,  is  not,  on  the  average, 
greater  than  at  Fort  Riley,  480  miles  farther  south.  It 
is  one  degree  less  than  at  Chicago  for  a  term  of  eleven 
years.  The  coldest  days  of  winter  are,  on  an  average, 
no  more  rigorous  at  Mackinac  than  those  of  Peoria,  Illi- 
nois, or  of  northern  Missouri.  If  we  add  to  these  equal 
quantities  of  cold  the  amount  of  wind  characteristic  of 
each  region,  it  is  at  once  apparent  that  the  balance  of 
sensible  and  damaging  cold  turns  promptly  against  the 
more  southern  localities.  There  is  no  point  along  the 
eastei-n  shore  of  Lake  Michigan  where  the  mean  mini- 
mum is  lower  than  minus  6°. 

One  is  led  to  remark,  in  this  connection,  the   impor- 
15 


226  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

tant  bearing  of  the  facts  disclosed  upon  a  great  enter- 
prise so  vigorously  advocated  a  few  years  since  by  Hon. 
Edgar  Conkling,  in  reference  to  the  founding  and  endow- 
ment of  a  national  university  at  Mackinac.  They  furnish 
the  exact  and  inductive  basis  of  the  reputation  for 
salubrity  which  has  long  been  enjoyed,  to  some  extent, 
by  the  region  of  the  northern  lakes.  They  demonstrate 
that  Mackinac  possesses,  both  in  its  summer  and  its 
winter  climate,  those  conditions  of  comfortable  equability 
of  temperature,  freedom  from  violent  winds,  and  entire 
exemption  from  malarial  influences,  which  constitute  the 
medical  man's  ideal  of  a  resort  for  invalids,  and  a 
region  suited  to  the  rearing  of  vigorous,  strong-bodied  and 
strong-minded  men  and  women.  Though  the  university 
project  never  advanced  beyond  the  stage  of  energetic 
advocacy,  one  can  clearly  perceive  that  with  the  crpen- 
ing  of  railroad  communication  and  the  dissemination  of 
a  knowledge  of  the  facts,  Mackinac  is  destined  speedily 
to  assume  the  character  of  a  summer  resort  more  de- 
lightful than  Long  Branch,  and  only  less  frequented  in 
consequence  of  the  latter's  proximity  to  New  York.  But 
no  one  can  anticipate  at  Mackinac,  that  unpleasant  and 
expensive  herding  of  so  many  thousands  within  limited 
quarters,  which  characterizes  some  seaside  resorts,  since 
the  region  of  Mackinac  extends  on  the  east  to  Cheboy- 
gan,  and  on  the  west  to  Grand  Traverse  Bay.  Already, 
at  the  head  of  Little  Traverse  Bay,  Petoskey  has  be- 
come the  summer  Mecca  of  thousands  fleeing  from  tropic 
heats,  and  exhausting  business,  and  annoying  hay-fevers, 
and  pernicious  malaria. 

Suppose  we  note  the  lowest  point  reached  by  the  ther- 
mometer in  a  series  of  years  at  each  of  fifty  localities. 


THE   CLIMATE   OF   THE    LAKE    REGION.  227 

These  points  are  the  extreme  minima  of  the  several  local- 
ities. Now,  drawing  a  line  on  a  map  through  all  the 
localities  which  have  the  same  extreme  minimum,  we 
have  an  isothermal  chart  for  extreme  minima.  Its  fea- 
tures are  similar  to  those  of  a  chart  of  mean  minima, 
but  still  more  pronounced.  Here  we  see  the  lake  influ- 
ence exerted  under  its  most  exaggerated  and  astonishing 
aspects.  The  line  of  extreme  minimum  of  minus  25°,  for 
instance,  strikes  from  Leaven  worth,  in  Kansas,  to  Ottawa 
and  the  vicinity  of  Chicago;  thence  along  Lake  Michigan, 
a  few  miles  east  of  Milwaukee,  to  the  immediate  vicinity 
of  Mackinac.  The  isotherm  of  minus  24°  strikes  Saint 
Louis,  and  passes  thence  through  Central  Illinois  and  In- 
diana, and  thence  northward  through  Michigan  at  the 
distance  of  thirty-five  or  forty  miles  from  the  lake  shore 
to  the  latitude  of  Thunder  Bay,  whence  it  descends  along 
the  eastern  slope  of  the  peninsula,  and  continues  south 
even  to  the  Ohio  river. 

To  put  the  facts  in  a  different  light,  it  appears  that  the 
lowest  point  reached  at  Mackinac  in  twenty-eight  years  is 
but  two  degrees  lower  than  the  extreme  minimum  of  Saint 
Louis.  Extreme  weather  at  Chicago  is  twelve  degrees 
colder  than  at  New  Buffalo.  The  lowest  extreme  of  Mil- 
waukee is  fourteen  degrees  below  the  exti-eme  minimum 
of  Grand  Haven,  while  the  extreme  of  Fort  Howard  is 
twenty  degrees  below  that  of  Northport.  In  general,  while 
the  mean  minimum  along  the  west  side  of  Lake  Michigan 
is  minus  16°,  that  along  the  east  side  is  minus  6°;  while 
the  extreme  minimum  on  the  west  side  is  minus  22°  to 
minus  30°,  that  of  the  east  side  is  minus  10°  to  minus 
16°  as  far  north  as  Little  Traverse  Bay.  On  that  day  of 
memorable  cold,  January  1,  1864,  the  thermometer  sank 


228  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

to  minus  30°  at  Milwaukee,  but  only  reached  minus  14° 
at  Northport  and  Traverse  City.  At  the  same  time  it 
was  minus  29°  at  Chicago  and  minus  20°  at  Kalamazoo. 
It  sank  to  minus  24°  at  Saint  Louis  and  minus  16°  at 
Memphis,  Tennessee.  This  .point  was  two  degrees  colder 
than  Northport,  640  miles  farther  north  in  a  direct  line. 
The  isotherm  of  minus  24°  bends  from  the  latitude  of 
Alpena,  through  Grand  Rapids,  Battle  Creek  and  Cold- 
water,  and  thence  to  Saint  Louis,  452  miles  farther  south. 
Cincinnati  is  reported  to  have  an  extreme  minimum  of 
minus  29°,  a  degree  of  cold  not  known  in  the  peninsula 
of  Michigan,  and  but  little  exceeded  along  the  south  shore 
of  Lake  Superior.  At  Ann  Arbor  the  lowest  point  reached 
in  twenty-eight  years  is  minus  24°.  On  January  1,  1864, 
it  was  minus  18°  at  Ann  Arbor.  The  area  of  the  ex- 
treme minimum  of  minus  24°  seems  to  cover  all  the 
central  portion  of  the  peninsula  east  of  Grand  Rapids, 
west  of  Bay  City,  and  south  of  Otsego  Lake,  and  stretches 
southward  into  central  Kentucky.  Compared  with  Trav- 
erse City,  the  extreme  minimum  of  Hazelwood,  Minnesota, 
is  22°  lower;  that  of  St.  Johnsbury,  Vermont,  28°  lower; 
that  of  Gardiner,  Maine,  within  thirty  miles  of  the  ocean, 
19°  lower,  and  of  Montreal  26°  lower. 

A  few  more  specific  illustrations  may  be  added.  On 
the  18th  of  November,  1880,  while  the  thermometer  was 
5°  at  Milwaukee,  it  stood  at  18°  at  Grand  Haven  and  at 
10°  at  Port  Huron.  At  the  same  time  it  was  8°  at  Saint 
Louis,  2°  at  Denver,  4°  at  Dodge  City,  Kansas,  and  6°  as 
far  south  as  Fort  Gibson,  Indian  Territory.  On  the  19th 
of  November,  while  the  thermometer  marked  29°  at  Grand 
Haven,  it  was  13°  at  Port  Huron  ;  and  farther  south  it 
marked  14°  at  Chicago,  2°  at  Indianapolis,  11°  at  Louis- 


THE   CLIMATE  PF  THE  LAKE   REGION.  229 

ville,  and  8°  at  Saint  Louis.  But  lest  it  be  thought  such 
contrasts  between  the  extreme  cold  of  the  lake  region 
and  that  of  other  points,  taken  simultaneously,  may  arise 
from  the  progressive  character  of  cold  centers,  let  us  take 
the  cycle  of  December  28-29,  1880,  and  compare,  without 
regard  to  simultaneousness,  the  lowest  points  reached  at 
diiferent  places.  The  thermometer  during  this  cycle 
reached  minus  30°  at  Duluth  and  minus  16°  at  Mar- 
quette,  in  nearly  the  same  latitude,  but  protected  by  Lake 
Superior.  It  was  minus  37°  at  Saint  Vincent  and  minus 
41°  at  Fort  Garry.  In  a  lower  latitude  the  mercury 
sank  to  minus  25°  at  Saint  Paul  and  minus  20°  at 
Escanaba,  while  at  Alpena,  in  the  shelter  of  the  lakes,  it 
only  attained  minus  10°.  Still  farther  south  we  found  it 
minus  20°  at  Lacrosse  and  minus  19°  at  Milwaukee,  while 
only  minus  8°  at  East  Saginaw.  Finally,  on  the  parallel 
of  Ann  Arbor  the  thermometer  stood  at  minus  16°  in 
the  peninsula  of  Michigan,  while  west  of  the  lakes  it 
stood  minus  23°  at  North  Platte,  minus  12°  at  Indian- 
apolis, and  minus  13°  at  Saint  Louis. 

The  peninsular  situation  of  Michigan  between  the  lakes 
is  something  which  arrests  the  attention  of  the  most 
casual  observer  of  the  map  of  the  Northwest.  It  is  not 
apparent  to  observation,  however,  that  Michigan  is  also  a 
climatic  peninsula ;  and.  yet  the  facts  which  have  been 
cited  in  this  paper  show  that  its  climate,  in  its  seasonal 
means,  is  a  patch  taken  from  the  latitude  of  Ohio;  while 
in  the  moderation  of  its  extremes  it  bears  an  analogy  to 
the  Floridian  peninsula.  Its  climate  is  cut  off  from  that 
of  Wisconsin  and  Iowa  by  a  barrier  as  abrupt  and  as 
real  as  that  which  limits  its  territory.  That  which  consti- 
tutes the  barrier  in  the  one  case  creates  it  in  the  other. 


230  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST^   HAMMER. 

While  the  whole  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Michigan  enjoys 
the  combined  advantages  of  lake  influence,  and  peculiar 
arrangement  in  the  prevailing  direction  of  the  wind, 
there  seemed  to  be  still  another  expedient  by  which  these 
advantages  could  be  enhanced  and  distributed  over  a  wider 
belt.  There  is  a  singular,  and,  one  could  almost  believe, 
providential,  conformation  of  this  shore  of  the  lake  which 
greatly  augments  its  ameliorating  influence  on  climate, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  creates  important  facilities  for 
shipment  and  transportation  of  the  products  of  the  soil. 
Anyone  looking  at  an  ordinary  map  of  Lake  Michigan 
would  at  once  conclude  that  the  rigid  continuity  of  the 
coast-line  excluded  the  possibility  of  all  harbor  accommo- 
dations from  Chicago  to  Grand  Traverse  Bay.  It  is  true 
that  we  find  few  harbors  in  a  state  of  preparation  for 
occupancy;  but  it  is  a  singular  and  interesting  and  most 
important  fact  that  there  is  not  a  stream,  however  small, 
emptying  into  Lake  Michigan  from  the  east  which  does 
not  first  discharge  its  waters  into  a  small  lake  which 
communicates  almost  immediately  with  Lake  Michigan. 
Looking  at  a  representation  of  this  hydrographic  singu- 
larity, one  can  hardly  resist  the  fancy  that  we  have  here 
a  real  litter  of  lakelets  nestling  alongside  of  the  great 
maternal  lake.  These  baby  lakes  are  bodies  of  clear 
water,  with  clean,  sandy  shores,  and  abound  in  delicate 
fish.  Toward  the  north  they'  contain  the  speckled  trout 
in  abundance,  while  many  of  the  streams  which  debouch 
through  them  are  stocked  with  that  game-fish  whose 
pursuit  is  so  exhilarating  to  anglers,  the  "  grayling,"  first 
described  from  the  waters  Michigan.  We  find  over  thirty 
of  these  lakelets  between  St.  Joseph  and  Little  Traverse 


THE  CLIMATE  OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  231 

Bay,  while  at  least  a  dozen  of  them  furnish  depth  of 
water  sufficient  to  float  the  largest  lake  steamers. 

The  geological  explanation  of  this  phenomenon  is  not 
difficult.  The  surface  sands  of  the  peninsula  have  for 
ages  been  in  process  of  transportation  by  the  moving 
waters  from  the  interior  to  the  great  lake.  The  stream 
of  sand  is  met  by  the  waves,  and  a  bar  is  formed  which, 
in  time,  obstructs  the  outlet.  In  some  cases  the  water 
is  dammed,  and  the  lakelet  is  formed  directly;  in  others 
the  stream  passes  off  laterally  between  the  bar  and  the 
mainland,  the  current  gradually  wearing  away  the  bar 
and  widening  the  water-way  on  the  eastern  side,  while 
the  action  of  the  waves  in  throwing  up  the  sands  widens 
and  develops  it  into  a  high  barrier  on  the  lakeward  side. 

The  climatic  effect  of  these  numerous  smaller  bodies 
of  fresh  water  —  stretched  like  a  string  of  pearls  along 
the  skirt  of  the  peninsula — is  to  widen  the  belt  of  lake 
influence,  and  to  temper  the  cold  approaching  from  almost 
every  direction.  They  also  multiply  many  fold  the  length 
of  coast-line,  and  furnish  innumerable  sites  enjoying  a 
water  aspect.  As  the  banks  of  all  these  lakelets  are 
elevated  and  dry,  the  lengthening  of  the  line  of  lakeside 
situations  is  a  circumstance  of  very  great  moment. 

It  is  worthy  of  remai'k  that  when  we  look  along  the 
ivestern  shore  of  Lake  Michigan  for  the  counterpart  of 
this  string  of  lakelets  it  is  not  there.  The  eastern  shore 
monopolizes  again  all  the  advantages.  Blessed  be  the 
west  wind,  which,  though  it  pinches  the  squatter  on  the 
prairie,  and  by  the  hands  of  its  servants,  the  waves,  digs 
down  the  eastern  borders  of  Wisconsin,  heaves  up  piles 
of  sand  upon  the  shore  of  Michigan,  making  unwearied 
additions  to  the  land,  and  building  up  the  terraces  of  our 


232  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

crystal  lakelets  to  furnish  a  "  lake  view  "  for  every  home- 
stead along  the  border  of  the  "  beautiful  peninsula." 

The  climatic  peculiarities  of  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake 
Michigan,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Saint  Joseph,  began  to 
be  understood  many  years  ago.  At  least,  it  had  been  em- 
pirically discovered  that  the  region  is  favorable  for  the 
growth  of  the  peach.  But  it  is  certain  that  no  one 
would  have  believed,  before  1866,  that  an  almost  identi- 
cal winter  climate  stretches  as  far  north  as  Grand  Trav- 
erse. In  1866  the  present  writer  set  forth  the  statistical 
evidence  of  the  fruit-producing  capacity  of  the  whole  lake 
shore;  and  in  1867  the  incredulity  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
State  Board  of  Agriculture  for  Michigan  prompted  him 
to  an  official  investigation,  which  ended  in  a  complete 
vindication  of  all  the  claims  set  up  for  "  The  Fruit  Belt 
of  Michigan."  At  the  pi*esent  time  it  is  demonstrated 
from  experience  that  all  the  way  from  New  Buffalo  to 
Northport,  a  distance  of  225  miles  in  a  right  line,  fruit- 
trees  and  shrubs  which  escape  destruction  through  the 
winters  of  central  Illinois  and  Missouri  enjoy  complete 
immunity.  During  the  period  of  verdui-e,  the  '  genial 
influence  of  the  lake  secures  them  from  the  early  and 
late  frosts,  which  are  not  unfrequently  felt  as  far  south 
as  Missouri,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  The  growing  sea- 
son is  consequently  as  long,  and  very  nearly  as  warm,  as 
that  of  central  Illinois.  The  equability  of  the  climate  is 
considerably  greater  ;  while  the  persistent  and  chilling 
and  destructive  winds  which  frequently  visit  the  south- 
west are  comparatively  unknown.  At  the  same  time, 
the  soil  of  the  entire  belt,  from  Indiana  to  Grand  Trav- 
erse Bay,  is  worthy  of  the  climate.  Though  decidedly 
sandy,  and  at  fii-st  view  uninviting,  it  is  proved,  both 


THE   CLIMATE   OF  THE   LAKE   REGION.  233 

by  investigation  and  experience,  to  abound  in  those  alka- 
line substances  requisite  for  the  highest  luxuriance  of 
ordinary  vegetation. 

In  accordance  with  these  conditions,  the  entire  lake 
shore,  for  a  breadth  of  twenty  to  forty  miles,  is  becoming 
rapidly  converted  into  orchards  and  plantations  for  the 
rearing  of  all  the  different  fruits  known  in  the  temperate 
zone. 


MAMMOTHS  AND  MASTODONS. 


ALMOST  every  one  is  aware  that  the  mammoth  was  a 
-*~-*-  quadruped  of  huge  dimensions.  The  name  has  been 
transferred  to  other  objects  of  extraordinary  magnitude. 
The  mammoth  is  generally  understood  to  have  been  an 
elephant-like  creature,  possessing  the  majestic  mien  and 
ponderous  tread  of  the  living  proboscidians  of  Africa  and 
India.  But  no  one  could  fail  to  stand  aghast  with  amaze- 
ment at  the  magnitude  of  the  truthful  restoration  of  the 
creature,  as  first  exhibited  in  this  country,  three  years 
ago,  in  the  Natural  Science  establishment  of  Professor 
Henry  A.  Ward,  of  Rochester.  Menageries  have  made  us 
all  familiar  with  the  bulky  and  graceless  grandeur  of  the 
modern  elephants.  We  have  seen  in  America  a  number 
of  mounted  skeletons  of  the  extinct  mastodon;  while  the 
bones  and  teeth  of  this  elephantine  predecessor  of  man 
have  fallen  under  the  observation  of  almost  every  child. 
But  nobody  had  adequately  conceived  the  astonishing  mag- 
nitude to  which  the  old  mammoth  of  Europe,  Asia  and 
America  sometimes  attained.  Within  a  few  years  the 
monster  has  been  carefully  reconstructed,  and  Professor 
Ward's  enterprise  has  introduced  him  to  the  notice  of 
American  geologists  and  the  American  public.  Permit  me 
to  recall  the  impressions  made  by  a  visit  to  the  Rochester 
establishment. 

As  the  visitor  enters  the  door  of  the  building,  which 

234 


.MAMMOTHS   AND   MASTODONS. 


235 


has  been  erected  for  the  accommodation  of  this  antedilu- 
vian, a  dark  mountain  of  flesh  rises  before  him.  He  had 
gauged  his  apprehension  to  the  familiar  bulk  of  the  ele- 
phant, but  here  his  eye  must  be  lifted  to  a  higher  alti- 
tude ;  his  whole  thought  must  swell  to  take  in  the  idea 
of  the  towering  form  which  looms  above  him  and  frowns 


THE   HAIRY  MAMMOTH  RESTORED.      FROM  A  RESTORATION   IN  THE 
ESTABLISHMENT  OF  PROFESSOR  H.  A.  WARD,  ROCHESTER,  N.  Y. 

darkly  and  severely  down  upon  him.  The  monster's  brow 
rises  like  some  old  granite  dome,  weather-beaten  and 
darkened  by  the  lapse  of  geologic  ages.  Two  winding 
streams  of  ivory  descend  like  glaciers  from  the  base  of 
the  dome,  while  the  corrugated  and  beetling  proboscis 
swells  between  them  like  the  embattled  crest  which  di- 


236  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

vides  two  Alpine  glacier-torrents.  Behind  expands  and 
uprises  the  mountain  mass  of  which  these  are  the  acces- 
sories. Serene  and  motionless  as  Mont  Blanc  this  majes- 
tic form  stands  awaiting  our  wonder  and  adoration.  No 
astonishment  disconcerts  it;  no  exclamations  stir  a  feature. 
Unlike  the  dumb  mountain,  however,  this  form  seems  in 
a  mood  of  contemplation.  All  this  dark  and  towering 
mass  is  conscious.  There  are  eyes  which  open  on  us  and 
take  cognizance  of  our  movements;  there  are  ears  which 
take  in  the  sounds  of  our  voice.  This  creature  contem- 
plates us  ;  he  throws  a  spell  over  us  ;  he  has  us  in  his 
power. 

The  mammoth!  aye,  the  mammoth  of  mammoths!  With 
a  long  breath,  after  this  suspense  of  amazement,  we  ex- 
tricate ourselves  from  his  spell,  and  meet  his  overpower- 
ing stare  with  the  force  of  intelligent  will.  He  is  but  a 
beast, —  let  us  analyze  the  sources  of  his  power  over  us. 
He  stands  sixteen  feet  in  height.  His  extreme  length  is 
twenty-six  feet,  and  the  distance  between  the  tips  of  his 
tusks  is  fourteen  feet.  His  body  is  thirty  feet  in  circum- 
ference close  to  the  skin.  The  sole  of  his  foot  is  three 
feet  in  diameter.  His  tusks  are  fourteen  feet  long  and 
one  foot  in  diameter  at  the  base.  Between  his  short, 
post-like  fore-legs  a  man  can  stand  upright  with  his  hat 
on  without  touching  the  animal's  body.  The  whole  ex- 
terior is  clothed  with  dark,  shaggy  hair,  quite  unlike  the 
modern  elephants,  and  under  the  throat  it  attains  a  length 
of  twelve  to  fifteen  inches.  There  is  a  gallery  in  this 
building,  and  the  monster's  eye  is  nearly  on  a  level  with 
it.  We  ascend  to  the  gallery  to  obtain  a  more  command- 
ing position,  and  there  experience  a  sensible  relief  in 
finding  this  formidable  creature  partially  beneath  us. 


MAMMOTHS   AND    MASTODONS.  237 

But  this  may  be  all  a  pure  fabrication, —  in  conception 
as  well  as  in  construction, —  like  the  "Trojan  Horse,"  or 
the  bronze  statue  of  Bavaria  at  Munich,  whose  hollow 
head  will  receive  six  men  and  women  at  once.  What 
evidence  have  we  that  such  a  beast  ever  lived?  Aye, 
there's  the  important  point.  Now,  I  have  examined  this 
question.  I  have  some  personal  knowledge,  and  I  have 
received  some  reliable  testimony.  First  let  me  give  a 
little  history  of  this  Wardian  mammoth. 

This  specimen  was  manufactured  in  Professor  Ward's 
establishment, —  itself  a  worthy  object  of  national  pride, 
since  no  equal  establishment  of  the  kind  exists  in  the 
world.  But  it  was  modeled  after  an  original  restoration 
purchased  at  Stuttgart.  The  original  was  made  by  the 
distinguished  preparator  L.  Martin,  who  worked  under 
the  direction  and  advice  of  Dr.  Oscar  Fraas,  the  celebrated 
geologist  and  comparative  anatomist  of  Stuttgart.  The 
Royal  Museum  at  Stuttgart  is  one  of  the  richest  in  the 
world,  and  in  certain  departments  it  surpasses  all.  Here 
had  been  preserved  for  some  years  various  bones  of  the 
extinct  elephant  which  once  roamed  over  Europe.  Here 
was  a  thigh-bone  and  there  a  vertebra;  here  a  tooth  and 
there  a  portion  of  a  skull;  here  a  tusk  and  there  an  ulna 
or  a  metacarpal.  I  well  remember  how  these  numerous 
huge  brown  relics  of  an  extinct  world  commanded  my 
attention  when  formerly  making  a  study  of  this  museum. 
Now,  every  bone  sustains  a  certain  relation  to  the  entire 
bulk  of  the  animal  to  which  it  belonged.  Indeed,  so  great 
is  the  uniformity  of  correlations  of  parts  that  we  safely 
affirm  that  if  one  elephantine  bone  was  twice  the  bulk 
of  another  of  the  same  name,  the  animal  which  used  it 
was  twice  the  bulk  of  the  other, —  exactly  as  the  Greek 


238  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

sculptor  proceeded  to  model  a  colossal  figure  from  the 
known  proportions  of  the  normal  one.  The  living  ele- 
phants from  different  regions,  and  of  different  varieties, 
ages  and  sexes,  have  long  been  known  to  comparative 
anatomists.  There  is  little  variation  among  them  in  the 
ratio  of  a  given  bone  to  the  whole  length  or  height  of 
the  animal.  Now,  as  the  mammoth  was  an  elephant,  the 
known  ratio  of  thigh-bone  to  the  animal  would  enable 
the  anatomist  to  construct  the  animal  from  the  bone, — 
from  a  single  bone.  But  in  the  case  of  the  mammoth, 
every  bone  of  the  skeleton  had  somewhere  been  discov- 
ered. With  such  knowledge  the  Stuttgart  specimen  was 
reconstructed.  The  left  tusk,  with  all  its  enormous 
magnitude,  was  literally  moulded  over  a  real  tusk,  and 
the  right  is  simply  made  to  correspond.  Dr.  Fraas,  in 
writing  on  this  subject,  after  saying  he  felt  "  homesick " 
for  another  sight  of  the  old  Colossus,  the  erection  of 
which  he  had  superintended,  personally  guarantees  the 
accuracy  of  the  reproduction  as  to  size  and  proportions, 
and  states  that  Herr  Martin  took  accurate  measures  for 
every  part  from  original  bones.  He  admits,  however, 
that  some  doubt  may  exist  as  to  the  color  of  the  hair, 
and  its  length  upon  the  tail  and  the  throat  of  the  animal. 
The  very  conditions  of  the  case  preclude  absolute  certainty 
here.  But  in  respect  to  these  points,  as  in  the  form  and 
pose  of  the  creature,  the  reconstructor  has  been  guided 
by  actual  specimens,  including  a  nearly  complete  skeleton 
preserved  in  the  Imperial  Museum  at  St.  Petersburg,  to 
which  I  shall  presently  refer. 

The  framework  of  the  restoration  was  of  timber.  Over 
this  the  contour  of  the  body  was  skillfully  shaped,  and  the 
whole  was  covered  by  a  skin.  To  this  was  applied  an 


MAMMOTHS  AND   MASTODONS.  239 

artificial  covering  of  hair  of  proper  length,  and  dyed  the 
appropriate  color.  And  thus  was  reproduced,  as  nearly 
as  science  and  art  could  accomplish  it,  the  verisimilitude 
of  the  living  mammoth  which  once  thundered  through 
the  forests  and  jungles  of  the  Old  World  and  the  New. 

This  extraordinary  product  of  human  skill  arrested 
the  attention  of  Professor  Ward.  He  was  on  his  way  to 
Egypt,  Abyssinia,  and  the  Red  Sea,  in  search  of  the  treas- 
ures of  the  animal  and  mineral  kingdoms  to  stock  his 
collection  and  supply  the  demands  of  American  colleges 
and  universities.  He  endeavored  to  purchase  the  speci- 
men, and  the  reader  may  like  to  know  that  it  was  held 
at  the  exorbitant  price  of  60,000  marks,  or  $15,000.  On 
his  return,  however,  he  telegraphed  from  Paris  the  offer 
of  a  sum  which  was  accepted.  Repairing  to  Stuttgart,  he 
subjected  the  beast  to  a  process  of  dissection,  and  after 
much  labor  reduced  it  to  a  condition  suited  for  trans- 
portation to  America.* 

The  present  specimen  was  built  by  Professor  Ward  and 
his  imported  preparators  after  the  model  of  the  original, 
but  with  several  minor  improvements.  It  consists  of 
thirty-two  separate  pieces,  and  is  specially  adapted  to  dis- 
mounting for  transportation.  The  hair  is  rendered  in- 
combustible by  steeping  in  a  solution  of  tungstate  of 
soda. 

A  reproduction  so  unique  of  a  prehistoric  monster 
whose  relics,  scattered  over  the  breadth  of  our  continent, 

*It  will  contribute  some  numerical  values  to  our  apprehension  of  the  bulk 
of  this  monster  to  read  the  following  statements:  Ten  workmen  were  occupied 
six  days  in  taking  the  creature  to  pieces  and  packing  it  in  fourteen  enormous 
boxes  for  shipment.  The  total  weight  was  14,694  pounds,  and  so  bulky  was  it 
that  it  loaded  four  German  freight  ears.  The  freight  charges  from  Stuttgart  to 
New  York  were  $682,  and  from  New  York  to  Rochester  by  canal  $86. 


240  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

have  excited  the  wonder  and  inquiry  of  every  American 
citizen,  possesses  much  more  than  a  commercial  impor- 
tance. Here,  at  length,  is  the  full  embodiment  of  the 
creature  whose  teeth  and  bones  our  bogs  have  been  yield- 
ing up  for  a  couple  of  centuries  past.  Some  of  us  have 
seen  the  ponderous  bones  of  his  near  relative,  the  masto- 
don, bolted  together  in  due  order,  in  the  museums  at 
Boston,  Albany,  Chicago  and  elsewhere,  but  this  mightier 
proboscidian  has  never  furnished  us  a  complete  skeleton. 
Still  stranger  to  American  eyes  is  the  towering  shaggy 
form  of  the  mammoth  as  clothed  in  flesh  and  elephantine 
fur.  This  and  the  mastodon  are  the  beasts  of  which  our 
Indians  preserve  some  distinct  traditions.  This  is  the 
beast  once  hunted  by  the  prehistoric  inhabitant  of  Europe. 
It  was  the  figure  of  such  game  that  European  man  in 
the  Stone  Age  sometimes  etched  on  plates  of  ivory.  It 
is  a  coincidence  of  great  interest  that  palaeolithic  man  in 
America  was  a  co-tenant  with  the  same  quadruped,  and 
executed  similar  sketches  upon  the  animal's  own  ivory; 
for  in  at  least  two  instances  such  outlines,  traced  on  ivory, 
have  been  taken  from  "  mounds  "  in  the  Mississippi  valley. 
By  our  relationship  to  the  primitive  populations  of  two 
continents,  therefore,  our  interest  impels  us  to  learn  more 
of  the  life  and  times  of  the  colossal  game  which  was  once 
pursued  with  rude  implements  of  flint  and  bone. 

Histoi-y  has  preserved  no  mention  of  the  existence  of 
the  mammoth  in  the  living  state;  but  its  bones  are  scat- 
tered over  the  whole  of  Eui-ope  and  northern  Asia  as  far 
as  Behring's  Straits  ;  even  on  the  American  side  of  the 
straits  they  occur  in  similar  abundance.  But  it  was,  ac- 
cording to  prevailing  scientific  opinion,  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent species  of  mammoth  which  left  its  remains  throughout 


MAMMOTHS    AND   MASTODONS.  241 

the  United  States,  and  even  as  far  as  Mexico  and  Central 
America.  Still  another  species  ranged  from  Honduras  to 
Peru.  Scientists  have  designated  the  first  mentioned  the 
"  primeval  mammoth "  (Elephas  primigemis),  and  our  own 
species  the  "  American  mammoth  "  (Elephas  Americanus). 
The  other  species  is  the  "  Andean  mammoth "  (Elephas 
Andium}.  Like  modern  elephants,  the  mammoths  proba- 
bly delighted  in  water  and  mire,  and  sometimes  indulged, 
like  the  rhinoceros  and  the  well-known  pig,  in  the  dirty 
habit  of  "wallowing"  in  the  mud.  This  instinct  tempted 
the  huge  creatures  into  treacherous  bogs,  in  which  they 
seem  sometimes  to  have  sunk  beyond  recovery;  for  their 
bones  are  frequently  preserved  in  beds  of  peat,  and  the 
skeleton  is  occasionally  found  in  an  erect  position.  Their 
tusks  occur  in  northern  Russia  in  such  abundance  as  to 
supply  an  important  part  of  the  ivory  of  commerce.  It 
is  said  that  Siberian  ivory  constitutes  the  principal  ma- 
terial on  which  the  Russian  ivory-turner  works.  Alaska 
also  affords  considerable  supplies. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  mammoth,  whose  congener, 
the  elephant,  is  remarkably  sensitive  to  cold,  once  abounded 
throughout  the  arctic  latitudes  of  the  two  worlds.  More 
than  a  hundred  years  ago  not  only  their  ivory  but  their 
carcasses  were  known  to  exist  in  Siberia,  imbedded  in 
solid  ice.  The  first  discovery  was  on  the  borders  of  the 
Alaseia  river,  which  flows  into  the  Arctic  ocean  beyond 
Indigirska.  The  body  was  still  standing  erect,  and  was 
almost  perfect.  The  skin  remained  in  place,  and  the  hair 
and  fur  were  still  attached  in  spots.  In  1772  the  body 
of  a  perfect  two-horned  rhinoceros,  covered  with  hair,  was 
found  preserved  in  frozen  gravel  near  the  Vilhoui  or 
Wiljui,  a  tributary  of  the  Lena,  in  latitude  64°.  The 
16 


242  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

head  and  feet  of  this  animal, —  also  related  to  tropical 
species, —  are  preserved  in  St.  Petersburg.  The  most  cele- 
brated discovery  was  made  in  1799.  A  Tungusian  fisher- 
man named  Schumachoff  was  exploring  along  the  coast 
of  the  frozen  ocean  for  ivory.  He  was  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Lena  river,  in  latitude  70°,  when  he  noticed,  in  a 
huge  block  of  clear  glacier  ice,  a  dark  object  imbedded 
too  deeply  to  permit  a  half  savage  curiosity  to  feel  tempted 
to  explore.  In  1801  the  melting  of  the  ice  had  exposed 
a  portion  of  the  very  carcass  of  the  animal  whose  ivory 
was  strewed  along  those  frozen  shores.  In  1803  it  had 
become  completely  disengaged  by  the  dissolution  of  the 
ice.  In  1804  the  Tungusian  cut  the  Tusks,  weighing  300 
pounds,  from  the  head,  and  disposed  of  them  for  fifty 
roubles  to  an  ivory  merchant.  In  1806  Mr.  Adams,  who 
was  collecting  for  the  Imperial  Museum  at  St.  Petersburg, 
found  the  carcass  still  on  the  shore,  but  greatly  mutilated. 
It  appeared  that  the  Yakutski  had  actually  regaled  their 
dogs  upon  the  flesh  ;  and  beai's,  wolves,  wolverines  and 
foxes  had  gladly  feasted  upon  it!  Fresh  elephant  steaks 
preserved  ten  thousand  years  in  Nature's  unequaled  re- 
frigerator! Thus  this  priceless  relic  of  a  prehistoric  world 
was  allowed  to  waste  away.  But  it  was  not  completely 
lost  to  science  ;  for,  except  one  foreleg,  the  skeleton  re- 
mained perfect.  A  large  part  of  the  skin  had  also 
escaped  destruction,  together  with  one  of  the  ears,  which 
still  preserved  its  characteristic  tuft  of  hairs.  The  skin 
was  of  a  dark  tint,  and  was  covered  with  reddish  wool 
an  inch  in  length,  interspersed  with  reddish-brown  hairs 
four  inches  long,  and  sparser  black  bristles  twelve  to  six- 
teen inches  long.  Dampness,  however,  had  destroyed  large 
portions,  and  others  had  been  trodden  into  the  earth  by 


MAMMOTHS    AND    MASTODON'S.  243 

bears.  Everything  of  value  was  now  collected,  including 
more  than  thirty  pounds  of  fur  ;  the  tusks  were  repur- 
chased, and  the  whole  was  transported  to  St.  Petersburg, 
where  the  mounted  skeleton  at  present  stands,  in  the  Im- 
perial Museum, —  the  skin  still  remaining  attached  to  the 
head  and  feet.  This  individual  was  nine  feet  high  and 
sixteen  feet  long,  exclusive  of  the  tusks.  Some  portions 
of  the  skin  and  hair  were  sent  by  Mr.  Adams  to  Sir 
Joseph  Banks,  and  they  may  now  be  seen  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  in  London. 

Other  discoveries  have  been  made  more  recently.  In 
1843  a  mammoth  was  found  by  Middendorf,  a  Russian 
naturalist,  on  the  Tas,  between  the  Obi  and  the  Yenesei, 
in  latitude  66°  30',  in  so  perfect  a  state  that  the  bulb  of 
the  eye  is  still  preserved  in  the  museum  at  Moscow. 
Another  carcass,  together  with  a  smaller  individual,  was 
discovered  the  same  year,  imbedded  in  clay  and  sand,  near 
the  river  Taimyr,  as  far  north  as  latitude  75°  15'. 

These  sources  of  information  have  been  fully  utilized 
in  the  restoration  of  which  a  view  is  given  above.  This 
Stuttgart-Rochester  restoration  may  therefore  be  regarded 
as  embodying,  for  scientific  and  popular  inspection,  all 
that  has  been  learned  in  a  hundred  years,  and  recorded 
in  a  hundred  volumes,  concerning  the  external  aspect  of 
the  primeval  mammoth  or  his  American  relative. 

It  is  the  extinct  Siberian  elephant  which  has  given  us 
the  word  "mammoth."  It  comes  from  the  Russian  mam- 
ant,  a  name  applied  by  the  native  tribes  to  a  huge  beast 
supposed  to  burrow  underground,  and  to  perish  whenever 
by  chance  it  becomes  exposed  to  the  light.  Some,  how- 
ever, think  it  is  derived  from  the  Hebrew  behemoth. 

It   is   impossible    to   refrain    from    speculating   on   the 


244  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

nature  of  the  events  which  resulted  in  the  burial  of 
entire  mammoths  in  glacier-ice.  That  the  climate  in 
which  they  had  lived  was  not  tropical,  like  that  of  Af- 
rica or  India,  may  be  regarded  as  proved  by  the  presence 
of  the  fur  in  which  these  animals  were  clothed.  That  it 
was  not  similar  to  the  existing  climate  of  northern  Si- 
beria is  apparent  from  the  consideration  that  such  a 
climate  would  not  yield  the  requisite  supply  of  vegeta- 
tion to  sustain  their  existence.  More  especially  would 
forest  vegetation  be  wanting,  which  seems  to  have  been 
designed  as  the  main  reliance  for  proboscidians.  North- 
ern Siberia  must,  therefore,  have  possessed  a  temperate 
climate.  If  the  change  to  an  arctic  climate  had  been 
gradual,  the  herds  of  mammoths  would  probably  have 
slowly  migrated  southward;  or,  if  no  actual  migration  oc- 
curred, the  extinction  of  the  mammoth  population  would 
have  been  distributed  over  many  years,  and  the  destruc- 
tion of  individuals  would  have  taken  place  at  tempera- 
tures which  were  still  insufficiently  rigorous  to  preserve 
their  carcasses  for  a  hundred  ages.  Whole  herds  of  mam- 
moths must  have  been  overwhelmed  by  a  sudden  invasion 
of  arctic  weather.  Some  secular  change  produced  an  un- 
precedented precipitation  of  snow.  We  may  imagine  ele- 
phantine communities  huddled  together  in  the  sheltering 
valleys  and  in  the  deep  defiles  of  the  rivers,  where,  on 
previous  occasions,  they  had  found  that  protection  which 
carried  them  safely  through  wintry  storms.  But  now, 
the  snow-fall  found  no  pause.  Like  cattle  overwhelmed 
in  the  gorges  of  Montana,  the  mammoths  were  rapidly 
buried.  By  precipitation  and  by  drifting,  fifty  feet  of 
snow,  perhaps,  accumulated  above  them.  They  must 
perish;  and  with  the  sudden  change  in  the  climate,  their 


MAMMOTHS   AND   MASTODONS.  245 

shroud  of  snow  would  remain  wrapped  about  them  through 
all  the  mildness  of  the  ensuing  summer.  The  fleecy  snow 
would  become  granular;  it  would  be  neve  or  firn,  as  in 
the  glacier  sources  of  the  Alps.  It  would  finally  become 
solid  ice, —  compact,  clear  and  sea-green  in  its  limpid 
depths.  It  would  be  a  glacier;  and  so  it  would  travel 
down  the  gorges,  down  the  valleys  toward  the  frozen 
ocean,  sweeping  buried  mammoths  bodily  in  its  resistless 
stream.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  ages,  their  mummied 
forms  would  reach  a  latitude  more  northern  than  that 
in  which  they  had  been  inhumed.  It  may  even  have 
been  the  case  that  living  mammoths  lingered  in  the  coun- 
try which  had  witnessed  the  snowy  burial  of  herds  of 
their  fellows.  Some  must  have  escaped  the  first  great 
snow-deluge,  and  there  must  have  been  a  return  of  sunny 
days,  during  which  they  could  seek  to  resuscitate  their 
famished  bodies;  and  spring  must  have  come  back  at  last, 
and  another  hope-inspiring  summer, —  cheering,  but  short 
and  illusory.  And  if  a  secular  pause  in  the  severity  of 
the  climate  ensued,  a  few  survivors  may  have  lingered 
for  many  years.  But  winter,  dire  and  permanent,  was 
on  the  march,  and  the  record  which  it  has  left  declares 
that  the  mammoth  population  struggled  in  vain  against 
the  despotism  of  frost,  and  that  the  empire  which  was 
set  up  has  crumbled  only  under  the  attacks  of  many 
thousand  summers. 

There  has  been  a  time  in  the  history  of  the  Ai-yan 
family  of  men  when  they  seem  to  have  suffered  from  a 
sudden  change  of  climate  which  compelled  them  to  mi- 
grate southwai-d.  When  we  trace  the  movements  of  the 
European  nations  backward,  we  find,  in  the  remote  past, 
a  point  of  divergence  from  the  nations  which  crossed  the 


246  SPAKKS   FKOM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMEK. 

Hindu-Kush  into  the  peninsula  of  India.  In  Central  Asia 
the  ancestors  of  the  Hindus,  Iranians  and  Europeans  were 
one  people.  There  arose  the  Brahmanic  and  Zoroastrian 
religions.  But  the  sacred  books  of  the  latter  contain  allu- 
sions to  a  remoter  time,  when  the  ancestors  of  the  Ar- 
yans dwelt  in  a  country  blessed  with  seven  months  of 
summer.  This  was  Aryana-Vaejo,  a  land  of  delight,  given 
by  Ahura-Mazda,  and  supposed  to  have  been  located  in 
Southern  Turkestan,  upon  the  Plateau  of  Pamir,  or  some- 
what farther  east  in  the  beautiful  valley  of  Cashgar. 
But  lest  this  paradise  should  tempt  all  nations  to  crowd 
in  and  overpopulate  it,  the  "  evil  being,  Angra-Mainyus 
(Ahriman),  full  of  death,  created  a  mighty  serpent,  and 
winter,  the  work  of  the  Devas."  Now  ten  months  of 
frost  prevailed,  succeeded  by  only  two  months  of  sum- 
mer. Of  this  transformed  region,  the  Vendidad  says: 
"There  is  the  heart  of  winter;  there  all  around  falls 
deep  snow;  there  is  the  worst  of  evils."  So  the  ances- 
tors of  the  Zoroastrians  migrated  from  Aryana-Vaejo, 
or  Old  Iran,  southward  into  New  Iran  within  the  modern 
Afghanistan.* 

The  Vendidad,  indeed,  seems  to  contain  reminiscences 
of  remoter  migrations,  stretching  from  the  Caucasus  to 
the  "  Five  Rivers,"  or  Punjab,  interrupted  by  fourteen  dif- 
ferent stations  or  pauses,  like  those  of  the  Israelites 

*  Is  there  no  analogy  between  the  Aryana-Vaejo  of  the  Zend-Avesta  and  the 
Eden  of  the  Hebrew  sacred  books?  In  both,  the  primitive  home  of  the  white 
race  was  a  country  of  spontaneous  productiveness  and  a  delightful  climate. 
Both  lands  were  given  by  a  beneficent  Deity  for  human  occupation.  From  both 
lands  our  ancestors  were  driven  through  the  machinations  of  the  Evil  One.  In 
both  narratives  the  power  of  evil  is  personified  in  a  serpent.  The  consequence 
in  both  narratives  is  the  necessity  of  resort  to  cultivation  of  the  soil  for  the  pro- 
duction of  bread.  May  both  narratives  be  pictures  reproducing  from  national 
memory  the  same  encroachment  of  physical  severities  upon  the  same  land  of 
edenic  delights? 


MAMMOTHS    AND   MASTODONS.  247 

through  the  wilderness  which  separated  them  from  their 
"land  of  promise." 

Geological  evidences  of  a  great  and  somewhat  sudden 
change  of  climate  throughout  the  North  Temperate  Zone, 
in  times  geologically  recent,  are  too  familiar  to  require 
more  than  a  mere  mention.  The  greater  part  of  Europe, 
and  all  America,  to  the  latitude  of  36°,  were  once  buried 
beneath  sheets  of  glacier  ice.  In  Europe  we  have  the 
evidence  of  the  presence  of  man  while  the  continental 
glaciers  were  flooding  the  rivers  of  France  by  their  rapid 
dissolution.  At  the  same  time  the  mammoth  was  there. 
While  thousands  of  his  fellow-mammoths  were  lying  frozen 
and  stark  in  the  icy  cemeteries  of  the  North,  a  few  of 
the  giants  of  a  former  age  had  chanced  to  dwell  in  lati- 
tudes which  perpetual  snow  had  not  invaded.  These  were 
a  part  of  the  game  which  the  primeval  inhabitants  of 
Europe  pursued.  Of  his  ivory  they  made  handles  for  their 
implements  and  weapons.  On  his  ivory  they  etched  fig- 
ures of  the  maned  and  shaggy  proboscidian,  of  which 
neither  history  nor  tradition  has  preserved  the  memory.* 
The  bones  and  teeth  of  the  mammoth  are  strewed  through 
all  the  cavern  homes  and  sequestered  haunts  of  the  oldest 
tribes  who  hunted  and  fought  upon  the  plains  and  along 
the  valleys  of  Europe. 

The  reader  will  irresistibly  inquire:  "How  many  years 
have  elapsed  since  Siberian  elephants  were  encased  in  ice? 
How  many  since  their  survivors  thundered  through  the 

*  The  entire  absence  of  such  tradition  from  Europe,  so  far  as  known,  seems 
to  imply  that  the  present  race  exterminated  or  expelled  their  predecessors,  in- 
stead of  becoming  consolidated  with  them,  as  has  been  sometimes  conjectured. 
The  Indians  of  America,  on  the  contrary,  retained  some  tradition  of  the  elephant 
and  mastodon.  In  view  of  the  supposition  that  the  Finns  and  Lapps  represent 
the  premediterranean  population  of  Europe,  it  would  be  extremely  interesting  to 
know  if  they  retain  any  national  recollections  of  the  hairy  mammoth. 


248  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

forests  of  England  and  Central  Europe  before  the  chase 
of  the  human  hunter?"  To  answer  these  questions  we 
must  ascertain  the  remoteness  of  the  epochs  of  continental 
glaciation,  and  of  the  disappearance  of  the  continental 
glaciers.  These  are  unsolved  problems  in  science.  If 
continental  glaciation  was  caused  by  a  state  of  maximum 
eccentricity  in  the  earth's  orbit,  as  Mr.  Croll  maintains, 
the  last  secular  midwinter  probably  occurred  about  80,000 
years  ago,  and  the  Siberian  carcasses  have  lain  preserved 
for  eighty  or  a  hundred  thousand  years;  and  the  decline 
of  the  glaciers  which  witnessed  the  presence  of  (Mongol- 
oid?) man  in  Europe  was  probably  not  later  than  50,000 
years  ago.*  If  continental  glaciation  was  caused  by  the 
precession  of  the  equinoxes,  as  M.  Adhemar  contends,  the 
last  geological  midwinter  may  have  been  about  10,500 
years  ago,  and  the  pluvial  condition  of  Europe  was  some- 
what less  remote.  Regardless  of  these  theories,  the  pres- 
ent writer  is  of  the  opinion  that  the  geological  events 
which  have  taken  place  since  the  epoch  of  general  glacia- 
tion do  not  demand  over  ten  thousand  years  ;  and  he 
inclines  to  think  that  the  pluvial  epoch  of  Western  Europe 
may  correspond  with  those  cataclysms  of  Europe  and 
Western  Asia  known  as  the  deluges  of  Ogyges,  Deucalion, 
Noah,  and  perhaps  of  the  Great  Yu  in  China,  f 

Only  two  species  of  elephants  have  survived  to  our 
day.  These  are  the  African  and  the  Indian  (Elephas 
Africanus  and  Elephas  Indiciis).  The  former  is  distin- 
guished by  the  rounded  skull,  the  immense  ears  and  the 
lozenge-shaped  figure  presented  by  the  outcropping  plates 

*  An  exposition  of  CroH's  glacial  theory  will  be  found  in  chapter  vii,  p.  186. 
t  See  more  particularly  in  chapter  vi,  p.  158  seq. 


MAMMOTHS   AND    MASTODONS. 


249 


GRINDER  OP  THE  AFRICAN  ELE- 
PHANT. PLAN  OF  ENAMEL- 
PLATES  ON  THE  CROWN. 


GRINDER  OF  INDIAN  ELEPHANT. 
PLAN  OF  ENAMEL-PLATES  ON 
THE  CROWN. 


on  the  crowns  of  the  molar  teeth  (see  cut).  The  Indian 
elephant  has  an  elongated 
or  pyramidally  elevated 
skull,  small  ears,  and  nar- 
row, elongated  figures,  in- 
closed by  the  plates  of  the 
molars.  Both  species  pos- 
sess five  toes  on  each  foot, 
but  the  Indian  has  only 
four  hoofs  behind,  and  the 
African  three  behind  and 
four  anteriorly.  The  mam- 
moth was  larger  than  eith- 
er. It  differed  from  both 
in  the  possession  of  a  dense 
clothing  of  hair.  It  resem- 
bled the  African  species  in  the  size  of  its  tusks,  and  the 
Indian  in  the  figure  of  the  vertical  plates  of  the  grind- 
ers, and  its  smaller  ears. 
The  tusks,  however,  were 
larger,  more  widely 
spread,  and  more  exten- 
sively curved,  than  those 
of  any  living  elephant, 
and  their  enormous  sock- 
ets produced  a  marked  elongation  of  the  head.  The  occiput 
was  largely  developed,  and  the  forehead  was  concave  and 
nearly  vertical. 

The  mammoth  must  not  be  confounded  with  the  mas- 
todon. The  size  and  general  aspect  of  the  latter  were 
extremely  similar,  though  we  have  no  evidence  that  it 
was  clothed  with  hair  save  the  discovery  of  a  few  dun- 


GRINDER    OF     MAMMOTH.      PLAN    OF 
ENAMEL-PLATES  ON  THE  CROWN. 


250  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

brown  tufts,  two  to  seven  inches  long,  in  connection  with 
the  Shawangunk  skeleton.  The  entire  structure  was  truly 
elephantine,  and  it  lived  as  a  contemporary  of  the  mam- 
moth. Peculiarities  of  the  grinding  teeth,  however,  led 
Cuvier  to  establish  a  distinct  genus  for  its  reception. 
The  molar  or  grinding  tooth  of  the  elephant,  in  its  usual 
condition,  consists  of  a  group  of  hollow,  flattened  cylinders 
of  enamel-covered  dentine,  standing  vertical  to  the  grind- 
ing surface,  and  arranged  in  a  rather  close  series,  extend- 
ing from  the  front  to  the  back  of  the  molar,  and  all 
cemented  in  one  huge  mass  by  a  substance  called  cemen- 
tum  (see  Figures,  page  249).  Each  flattened  cylinder, 
while  unworn  on  the  crown,  is  closed  up,  but  by  wearing 
it  soon  becomes  open.  The  cylinders,  moreover,  ultimately 
coalesce  at  the  base  of  the  crown,  forming  a  common  body 
from  which  the  roots  proceed.  Now,  in  the  mastodon 
(see  cut)  the  vertical  flattened  cylinders  begin  to  de- 


GRINDER   OF   MASTODON.      PERSPECTIVE  VIEW   FROM   THE   SIDE. 

velop  on  the  crown  in  a  similar  way;  but  they  are  fewer, 
smaller  and  less  compressed,  and  coalesce  with  each  other 
much  nearer  the  surface  of  the  crown.  Hence  no  cernen- 
tum  is  required  to  hold  them  together,  and  this  substance 
is  scarcely  discoverable  except  upon  the  roots  of  the  tooth. 


MAMMOTHS   AND    MASTODONS.  251 

Moreover,  the  mastodont  molar  is  smaller,  and  eight  of 
them  may  be  fully  in  use  at  one  time,  while  in  the  ele- 
phant but  four.  It"  is  an  exceptional  circumstance  that 
the  succession  of  n.olars  in  both  genera  is  from  behind, 
save  that  in  the  mastodon  the  first  two  molars  are  suc- 
ceeded vertically,  according  to  the  law  of  other  mammals. 
The  great  mastodon  which  once  roamed  over  North 
America  is  known  as  the  American  mastodon  (Mastodon 
AmeHcanus).  It  seems  to  have  been  the  dominant  pro- 
boscidian of  the  New  World  in  the  same  age  when  the 
primitive  mammoth  was  dominant  in  the  Old  World. 
Yet  another  species  of  mammoth  roamed  here  at  the 
same  time  as  another  species  of  mastodon  (Mastodon  an- 
gustidens,  the  narrow-toothed  mastodon)  roamed  in  Eu- 
rope. Evidence  exists  that  the  American  mastodon  con- 
tinued in  America  to  as  late  a  date  as  the  primeval  mam- 
moth in  Europe,  and  was,  like  that,  contemporary  with 
the  human  species.  Barton  and  Kalm  both  give  accounts 
of  discoveries  in  which  some  outline  of  the  soft  parts  of 
the  animal  was  still  preserved.  The  Indians,  moreover, 
retained  very  positive  and  vivid  traditions  of  the  masto- 
don, calling  it  "the  bison's  grandfather,"  and  related  that 
they  had  all  been  slain  by  the  Great  Man  because  they 
were  destroying  the  Indians'  game.  The  skeletons  of 
the  mastodon  are  found  sometimes  standing  erect  in  beds 
of  peat,  marl  or  mud  ;  and  the  writer  has  observed  a 
skeleton,  in  one  instance,  within  eighteen  inches  of  the 
surface,  where  it  would  seem  it  might  have  been  deposited 
within  five  hundred  years.  These  remains,  like  those  of 
the  Siberian  mammoth,  occur  under  such  circumstances 
as  to  constrain  us  to  believe  that  their  inhumation  has 
been  geologically  very  recent.  And  yet  it  seems  probable 


252  SPAEKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

that  the  primeval  mammoths,  which,  were  contemporary 
with  the  oldest  men  in  Europe,  were  the  survivors  of 
those  encased  in  Siberian  ice. 

I  must  now  allude  to  some  facts  of  extraordinary  in- 
terest. There  were  once  living  in  India,  but  before  the 
period  of  the  primeval  mammoth,  proboscidians  which  were 
intermediate  between  the  mastodon  and  the  elephant  in 
the  structure  of  their  grinders.  We  know  a  gradation 
of  at  least  four  connecting  links.  First,  there  was  the 
wide-toothed  mastodon  (Mastodon  latidens),  which  had  the 
ridges  across  the  crown  (corresponding  to  the  unworn, 
flattened  cylinders  of  the  elephant),  more  numerous  than 
in  the  American  mastodon,  less  distant,  more  tuberculated, 
with  the  intervals  between  them  deeper.  Secondly,  there 
was  the  elephantoid  mastodon  (Mastodon  elephantoides\ 
which  had  a  molar  twelve  inches  long,  with  ten  trans- 
verse ridges  ;  in  both  respects  resembling  the  elephant, 
but  still,  unlike  the  elephant,  having  very  little  cenicntinn 
between  the  ridges.  Thirdly,  there  was  the  flat-faced  ele- 
phant (Eleplias  planifrons),  which,  though  styled  an  ele- 
phant, and  having  a  supply  of  cementum  between  the 
transverse  plates,  was  nevertheless  mastodon-like  in  the 
shallowness  of  the  clefts  between  the  plates.  Fourthly, 
there  was  the  Hysudric  elephant  (Eleplias  Hysudricus),  in 
which  the  divergence  from  the  mastodon  type  was  car- 
ried still  farther.  But  lastly,  it  is  can-ied  farthest  of  all 
in  the  living  Indian  elephant,  which  has  the  most  com- 
plex molars  found  among  existing  animals.  Now  all  these 
proboscidians,  together  with  the  primeval  mammoth,  dwelt 
in  successive  periods  upon  the  same  continent ;  and  it  is 
a  fair  inquiry  whether  they  were  genealogically  related 
to  each  other.  Venturing  to  arrange  them  in  a  linear 


MAMMOTHS   AND   MASTODONS.  253 

series,  we  should  have  a  succession  somewhat  as  follows  : 
(1)  Mastodon  angnstidens;  (2)  Mastodon  latidens;  (3)  Mas- 
todon elephantoides ;  (4)  Elephas  planifrons ;  (5)  Elephas 
Africanus;  (6)  Elephas  Hysudricus;  (7)  Elephas  Indictts. 
This  at  least  represents  the  order  of  divergence  of  the 
molar  from  the  mastodont  type,  and  this  is  the  historical 
order  of  existence  of  the  species  now  extinct.  The  Afri- 
can elephant  thus  seems  to  be  a  survivor  of  times  as  re- 
mote as  those  in  which  the  Hysudric  elephant  flourished, 
and  its  remains  have  been  actually  discovered  in  the 
Newer  Pliocene  deposits  of  the  island  of  Sicily,  in  associ- 
ation with  those  of  another  elephant  (Elephas  antiqmts), 
which  came  down  from  the  preceding  epoch.  Here  we 
have  a  successional  order  and  a  parallel  structural  rela- 
tionship exactly  like  those  which  have  been  traced  in  the 
geological  history  of  the  horse-type,  though  not  by  any 
means  extending  over  a  geological  interval  of  equal  length. 
The  mastodon  preceded  the  elephant  in  both  the  Old 
World  and  the  New;  and  this  is  in  accordance  with  their 
respective  degrees  of  divergence  from  still  older  mammals. 
In  North  America  the  mastodon  is  known  both  in  the 
Older  and  Newer  Pliocene.  In  Europe  it  made  its  first 
appearance  at  an  epoch  generally  placed,  but  perhaps 
erroneously,  a  little  earlier,  Mastodon,  longirostris  and  Mas- 
todon tapiroides  being  referred  to  the  Miocene  or  Middle 
Tertiary.  As  the  mastodon,  on  the  one  side,  graduates 
into  the  succession  of  elephants,  on  the  other,  one  of  the 
oldest  mastodons  of  Europe  (M.  tapiroides)  reveals  affini- 
ties with  the  more  ancient  types  of  tapir  and  dinotherium; 
and  the  oldest  mastodons  of  America  were  associated  with, 
or  immediately  preceded  by,  other  enormous,  many-hoofed 
quadrupeds,  so  far  resembling  the  mastodon  that  authori- 


254  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ties  are  divided  on  the  question  whether  they  do  not  really 
belong  to  proboscidians.  All  these  facts  accord  with  the 
theory  of  a  genealogical  descent  from  the  older  types, 
through  the  mastodons  and  transitional  mastodons  to  the 
most  divergent  elephants. 

The  Wardian  restoration,  therefore,  carries  our  thoughts 
backward  directly  to  the  epoch  when  Europe  and  America 
became  wrapped  in  a  permanent  mantle  of  snow;  and  to  a 
later  epoch,  when  it  was  the  companion  of  the  rude  ancestors 
of  our  species ;  and  then,  by  association,  backward  into  more 
distant  ages,  when  the  plastic  influence  of  time  was  slowly 
evolving  the  elephantine  type  from  the  mastodon  and  from 
still  older  and  stranger  forms.  In  these  prehuman  ages  the 
fair  surface  of  our  states  and  territories  was  populated 
by  herds  of  quadrupeds  as  strange  as  they  were  gigantic. 
They  grazed  and  browsed  over  regions  which  are  now 
the  sites  of  waving  crops  and  populous  cities,  and  prob- 
ably of  navigable  lakes.  Here  were  nursed  the  primeval 
horses,  and  i-hinoceroses,  and  tapirs,  and  camels,  and  pigs, 
and  deer,  and  perhaps  mastodons,  whose  descendants  wan- 
dered by  the  northwest  passage  to  Asia,  Europe,  and 
Africa.  Here  was  the  real  Old  World  spread  continent- 
wide  and  populous,  while  Europe  was  merely  an  archi- 
pelago. The  relics  of  that  wonderful  extinct  population 
have  been  studied  by  Leidy,  and  Cope,  and  Marsh;  and 
through  their  labors  we  are  permitted  to  live,  as  it  were, 
a  million  years  ago.  Still  more  real  and  present  appear 
the  scenes  of  those  primitive  times  when  we  stand  in  the 
midst  of  the  restored  and  rehabilitated  creatures  of  the 
Occident  and  the  Orient  which  Professor  Ward  has  spread 
before  the  eyes  of  the  curious  and  inquiring  in  his  vast 
museum  at  Rochester. 


SALT  ENTERPRISE  IN  MICHIGAN. 


~l  PAVING  had  occasion  recently  to  draw  up  a  state- 
-* — •-  ment  of  my  connection  with  the  establishment  of 
existing  conceptions  respecting  the  geology  of  salt  and 
brine  in  the  State  of  Michigan,  I  was  first  led  to  realize 
that  some  obligation  might  rest  on  me  to  leave  on  rec- 
ord, from  personal  experience  and  knowledge,  a  chapter 
on  the  historical  development  of  these  conceptions.  The 
salt  manufacture  in  Michigan  has,  in  twenty  years,  at- 
tained proportions  which  are  truly  enormous.  Every  fact 
connected  with  the  record  of  such  a  development  possesses 
a  permanent  interest.  The  magnitude  of  the  salt  busi- 
ness in  the  state,  and  the  large  number  of  persons  con- 
nected with  it,  either  in  production  or  consumption,  create 
a  wide-spread  popular  interest;  while  the  geological  posi- 
tion, attitude  and  productiveness  of  three  separate  salt- 
producing  formations  give  the  subject  also  an  unusual 
degree  of  scientific  interest. 

The  existence  of  salt  springs  at  numberless  points  in 
the  lower  peninsula  of  Michigan  has  been  known  from 
its  earliest  settlement;  and  here,  as  in  other  states,  the 
Indians,  no  less  than  the  elk  and  the  deer,  supplied  their 
wants  from  the  natural  salines.  Numerous  reservations 
of  lands  supposed  to  contain  salt  springs  had.  at  an  early 
day,  been  made  by  the  United  States;  and  several  unsuc- 
cessful attempts  had  been  instituted  by  individuals  to 

256 


256  SPAEKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

manufacture  salt.  Michigan  became  a  state  in  1835,  and 
in  1836  seventy-two  sections  of  salt-spring  lands  were 
patented  to  the  state  by  the  general  government.*  A 
geological  survey  of  the  state  was  instituted  by  act  of  the 
legislature,  approved  February  23, 1837.  Douglass  Hough- 
ton,  M.D.,  was  appointed  State  Geologist,  and  his  first 
report  was  dated  January  22,  1838.  f  One  of  the  first 
objects  contemplated  by  the  legislature  which  organized 
the  survey,  as  well  as  by  the  superintendent  himself,  was 
the  determination  of  precise  facts  in  reference  to  the 
value  and  distribution  of  the  salt  springs  of  the  state. 
Accordingly,  about  two-thirds  of  the  State  Geologist's  First 
Annual  Report  was  devoted  to  an  exposition  of  the  results 
of  his  observations  upon  the  brine  springs  of  the  state, 
made  during  the  previous  year.  He  found  the  salines 
of  the  state  distributed  in  five  groups:  first,  those  upon 
the  Grand  River,  near  Grand  Rapids  ;  second,  those  on 
Maple  River,  in  Gratiot  county;  third,  those  on  the  Titta- 
bawassee,  in  Midland  county;  fourth,  those  of  Macomb 
county;  fifth,  those  on  the  Saline  River,  in  Washtenaw 
county.  No  saline  indications  of  importance  were  known 
south  of  a  line  drawn  from  Monroe  to  Grand  Rapids. 
Dr.  Houghton  gave  analyses  of  twenty  samples  of  brine 
from  as  many  different  localities  within  the  peninsula. 
These  localities  were  generally  on  marshes,  circumstanced 
similarly  to  the  salines  of  New  York,  or  on  the  imme- 
diate banks  of  streams  subject  more  or  less  to  overflow. 
As  the  result  of  the  observations  of  this  year,  Dr.  Hough- 
ton  advanced  the  opinion  that  the  brine  supplied  at  the 
surface,  at  any  of  the  localities  examined,  would  prove 
too  weak  and  too  limited  in  quantity  to  justify  the  expec- 

*  Act  of  Congress,  June  23,  1836.  t  House  Documents,  pp.  276-316. 


SALT    ENTERPRISE   IN    MICHIGAN.  257 

tat  ion  of  remunerative  manufacture.  At  the  same  time, 
he  announced  "  a  general  resemblance  between  the  geology 
of  the  valley  of  the  Ohio  and  that  of  Michigan,"  and  stated 
his  belief  that  "  the  rock  formations  of  our  saliferous 
district  are  somewhat  lower  in  the  series  than  those  occur- 
ring in  the  principal  salines  on  the  Ohio,"  and  from  this 
"  inferred  that  the  salt-bearing  rock  would  be  nearer  the 
surface  here "  than  in  Ohio.  The  similarity  of  circum- 
stances, as  he  erroneously  conceived,  attending  the  occur- 
rence of  brine  springs  in  Michigan  and  Ohio,  led  him  to 
advance  the  opinion  that  in  this  state,  as  well  as  Ohio, 
success  might  follow  the  boring  of  artesian  wells  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  salines. 

This  report  led  to  the  passage  of  an  act  approved 
March  24,  1838,  "  To  provide  for  the  improvement  of  cer- 
tain State  Salt  Springs,"  directing  the  State  Geologist  to 
proceed  to  make  explorations  by  boring  at  one  or  more 
of  the  springs,  and  appropriating  three  thousand  dollars 
to  defray  expenses. 

It  marks  the  intelligent  and  liberal  spirit  of  the  early 
statesmen  of  Michigan  to  note  that,  by  an  act  approved 
March  23,  1838,  the  first  organization  of  the  Geological 
Survey  was  abolished  and  an  enlarged  organization  adopted. 
This  established  four  departments:  1.  Geological  and  Min- 
eralogical;  2.  Zoological;  3.  Botanical;  4.  Topographical. 
Twelve  thousand  dollars  were  appropriated  for  each  year 
between  March  1,  1838,  and  March  1,  1841.* 

On  the  1st  of  January,  1839,  the  State  Geologist  re- 
ported that  he  had  visited  the  various  salines  of  Penn- 

*When,  in  1859,  the  legislature  of  the  state  determined  to  establish  a  new 
Geological  Survey,  they  adopted  the  law  of  1837,  instead  of  that  of  1838,  and  ap- 
propriated five  thousand  dollars  for  the  expenses  of  two  years. 
17 


258  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

sylvania,  Virginia  and  Ohio,  with  the  view  of  collecting 
information  to  guide  his  procedure,  and  had  commenced 
the  sinking  of  two  sJtafts, —  one  on  the  Tittabawassee 
near  the  mouth  of  Salt  River,  and  the  other  on  the  Grand 
River,  about  three  miles  west  of  Grand  Rapids.  Before 
the  close  of  the  month  the  legislature  made  further  spe- 
cial provision  for  the  prosecution  of  these  two  enterprises. 
The  work,  however,  was  conducted  under  great  difficul- 
ties. The  surface  materials  were  first  penetrated  on  the 
Tittabawassee,  by  a  shaft  eight  feet  square,  to  the  depth 
of  forty-five  feet,  when  fresh  and  brackish  water  over- 
powered the  pumps,  and  an  attempt  was  made  to  sink  a 
drill  at  a  neighboring  point.  From  May  to  November, 
1841,  the  drill  penetrated  but  139  feet,  when  a  rock  was 
struck  (supposed  by  Dr.  Houghton  to  be  quartzite)  which 
the  drill  entered  but  half  an  inch  in  eleven  hours,  though 
loaded  with  a  weight  of  270  pounds.  At  this  obstacle 
the  work  was  abandoned. 

The  well  near  Grand  Rapids  (Sec.  3,  T.  6  N,  12  W.)  was 
begun  in  July  1838,  and  ended  in  1842,  at  a  depth  of 
473  feet.  It  was  afterward  carried  to  a  depth  of  876 
feet,  and  somewhat  beyond.*  This  well  passed  40  feet 
through  superficial  materials;  21  feet  through  the  Mich- 
igan Salt  Group;  280  feet  through  the  Marshall  Gi'oup, 
from  which  a  weak  brine  flowed  copiously;  and  535  feet 
through  the  Huron  Group.f 

*  According  to  information  furnished  by  John  Ball,  Esq.,  of  Grand  Rapids, 
December  22,  1862.  It  was  bored  by  Hon.  Lucius  Lyon,  under  contract  with  Dr. 
Houghton,  for  the  State.  Mr.  Ball  himself  made  the  measurements  of  depth,  and 
payments  accordingly,  while  Dr.  Houghton  was  engaged  in  the  Lake  Superior 
region.  "  The  last  measurement  was  876  feet,  and  they  bored  a  short  time  after, 
and  got  jammed,  as  they  express  it,  and  gave  it  up." 

t  These  determinations  and  designations  are  of  later  date,  and  made  by  the 
present  writer. 


SALT    ENTERPRISE    IN    MICHIGAN;.  259 

In  these  two  costly  and  protracted  experiments  no 
brine  was  obtained  materially  better  than  that  previously 
occurring  at  the  surface. 

In  the  meantime,  in  January  1840,  Mr.  Lyon  began 
boring  for  salt  on  his  own  account.  His  location  was 
near  Bridge-street  bridge,  in  the  village  (now  city)  of 
Grand  Rapids,  and  by  July  1841,  he  had  penetrated  to  a 
depth  of  661  feet.  This  well  began  upon  the  Carbonifer- 
ous Limestone,  which  was  found  19  feet  thick,  and  passed 
171  feet  through  the  Michigan  Salt  Group,  253  feet 
through  the  Marshall  Group,  and  214  feet  into  the  Huron 
Group.  It  furnished  an  enormous  flow  of  brackish  wa- 
ter, amounting  to  one  hogshead  per  minute;  and  by  means 
of  an  ingenious  contrivance  brine  was  brought  up  un- 
mixed with  the  flow  of  fresh  water,  which  proved  to  be 
one-fifth  saturated, —  or  at  least  equal  in  strength  to  brine 
at  that  time  used  on  the  Kanawha  and  Ohio  rivers. 
With  salt  selling  at  three  dollars  per  barrel,  Mr.  Lyon 
was  enabled  to  manufacture  a  limited  amount  without 
loss.  The  want  of  brine  of  adequate  strength,  however, 
led  to  an  early  suspension  of  the  business. 

After  the  failures  of  1838-42,  the  "  Salt  Spring  Lands" 
came  into  the  market  as  little  superior  to  ordinary  agri- 
cultural lands.  In  1849  (March  28),  on  the  organization 
of  the  State  Normal  School,  twenty-five  sections  were  set 
apart  for  the  creation  of  a  Normal  School  Fund,  at  the 
minimum  price  of  four  dollars  an  acre  for  the  unimproved 
tracts;  and  in  1855  (February  12)  twenty-two  sections 
were  set  apart  for  the  endowment  of  an  Agricultural 
College. 

A  lingering  belief  yet  survived,  however,  that  Mich- 
igan was  still  destined  to  become  a  salt-producing  state; 


260  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

and  citizens  of  Grand  Rapids,  still  remembering  how  near 
to  the  verge  of  success  Mr.  Lyon  had  reached,  seriously 
agitated  the  resumption  of  explorations.  Through  the 
personal  exertions  of  Dr.  George  A.  Lathrop,  of  East  Sag- 
inaw,  and  James  Scribner,  Esq.,  and  others,  of  Grand  Rap- 
ids, a  law  was  passed,  which  was  approved  February  15, 
1859,  offering  a  premium  of  ten  cents  a  bushel  for  all 
salt  made  from  brine  obtained  by  boring  within  the  state, 
and  exemption  from  taxation  of  all  property  employed  in 
the  manufactui-e, —  the  bounty  to  be  paid  when  not  less 
than  5,000  bushels  should  have  been  manufactured.  On 
the  same  date  an  act  was  approved  for  the  completion  of 
the  geological  survey  of  the  state;  and  on  the  9th  of 
March  the  present  writer  was  commissioned  by  Gov.  Mo- 
ses Wisner  to  conduct  the  survey.  As  soon  as  the  season 
permitted  he  began  an  examination  of  the  outcropping 
rocks  in  southern  Michigan.  His  principal  work  this  sea- 
son extended  from  the  Detroit  River  across  the  southern 
portion  of  the  state,  and  north  to  Newaygo  county.  These 
observations,  together  with  those  reported  by  an  assistant 
from  Genesee  and  Saginaw  counties,  and  some  less  syste- 
matic original  studies  in  Shiawassee,  Genesee  and  Saginaw, 
furnished  the  data  on  which  it  was  concluded  that  the 
formations  of  the  peninsula  presented  the  arrangement  of 
a  nest  of  wooden  dishes.  The  most  important  determina- 
tion was  the  identification  of  an  additional  group  of  rocks, 
not  hitherto  noted  in  the  state  or  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States.  This  was  intercalated  between  the  limestone,  then 
first  ascertained  to  be  the  great  Carboniferous  Limestone 
of  the  United  States,  and  the  ferruginous  sandstones 
which  outcrop  extensively  in  the  southern  counties.  It 
was  designated  provisionally  at  that  time  the  "  Gypseous 


SALT    ENTERPRISE   IN   MICHIGAN.  261 

Series";  but  a  little  later,  the  "Michigan  Salt  Group." 
It  has  a  thickness  of  180  feet,  and  consists  of  argillaceous 
shales,  clays,  magnesian  limestones  and  beds  of  gypsum.* 
Here  is  the  origin  of  the  brine  which  escapes  in  a  circle 
of  springs  marking  the  contour  of  the  formation.  This 
group  of  strata  underlies  17,000  square  miles  in  the  cen- 
tral portion  of  the  state.  It  is  dish- shaped,  and  consti- 
tutes an  immense  reservoir  or  saliferous  basin.  The 
edges  are  sufficiently  elevated  to  prevent  the  efflux  of 
water  which  finds  its  way  into  it;  and  hence  the  saline 
particles  have  never  been  washed  away,  as  would  have 
been  the  case  if  the  formation  possessed  any  continuous 
dip  from  border  to  border,  or  even  had  a  depression  on 
one  side  sufficiently  deep  to  drain  its  'contents.  Beneath 
this  series  of  shales  is  a  porous  sandstone  —  the  Napoleon 
sandstone  of  the  Marshall  Group  —  which,  within  the  cir- 
cumference of  the  basin  which  it  forms,  becomes  saturated 
with  brine  from  above.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  it 
is  evident  that  the  strongest  brine  must  accumulate  in 
the  deepest  part  of  this  basin. 

In  April.  1859,  an  artesian  boring  for  salt  was  begun 
at  East  Saginaw,  under  the  direction  of  Dr.  G.  A.  Lathrop. 
I  am  not  informed  of  the  geological  reasoning  which  led 
to  the  selection  of  that  location.  There  were  no  brine 
springs  in  that  vicinity,  nor  were  there  any  outcrops  of 
the  underlying  rocks.  The  result  showed  that  the  rocks 
were  buried  a  hundred  feet  deep.  Dr.  Lathrop  had  trav- 
eled extensively  in  the  regions  about  Saginaw  Bay,  and 
possessed  a  large  amount  of  exact  information  on  the 
of  that  part  of  the  state.  At  Bay  City,  moreover, 


*  Without  donbt  these  strata  correspond  to  rocks  which,  in  other  states,  cor 
Btitute  some  of  the  lower  part  of  the  great  Carboniferous  Limestone  series. 


262  SPARKS   FEOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Mr.  James  Frazier  had  found  brine  by  sinking  a  common 
well  to  the  depth  of  eighty  feet;  and  a  similar  result  had 
been  reached  at  Bangor. 

On  the  12th  of  August,  1859,  a  well  was  begun  at 
Grand  Rapids  by  the  "Grand  Rapids  Salt  Manufacturing 
Company,"  under  the  direction  of  James  Scribner,  and 
this  was  completed  October  14  to  the  depth  of  258  feet, 
with  brine  not  exceeding  20°  in  strength.  The  impelling 
motive  for  this  location  was  the  traditional  belief  that 
the  springs  of  that  vicinity  issued  through  fissures  from 
a  deep-seated  supply.  In  October,  1859,  I  visited  Grand 
Rapids,  after  completing  the  tour  just  indicated,  and  first 
declared,  through  the  public  prints  of  the  city,  that  the 
salt  springs  of  that  vicinity  were  supplied  by  an  overflow 
at  the  margin  of  the  "  salt  basin  "  which  lay  eastward 
from  that  point ;  and  hence  all  expenditures  at  Grand 
Rapids  must  prove  comparatively  unproductive.  I  stated 
on  that  occasion  that  the  configuration  of  the  strata 
pointed  to  the  Saginaw  valley  as  the  position  of  the  prin- 
cipal synclinal,  and  added  that  the  very  presence  of  the 
Saginaw  bay  and  river  indicated  that  region  as  overlying 
the  deepest  depression  of  our  formations.  Meantime, 
however,  other  wells  were  begun  by  the  "  Grand  River 
Salt  Company  "  and  by  Mr.  R.  E.  Butterworth,  but  they 
led  to  no  satisfactory  results.  The  same  must  be  said  of 
three  other  wells  bored  at  a  still  later  date,  all  of  which 
reached  over  400  feet.* 

*  On  the  very  day  on  which  these  words  are  penned,  I  have  received  infor- 
mation of  a  similar  demonstration  of  the  wisdom  of  heeding  scientific  advice. 
Some  years  ago  I  was  commissioned  by  Governor  Austin,  of  Minnesota,  to 
make  a  survey  for  salt  in  the  vicinity  of  Belle  I'laine  on  the  Minnesota  river. 
A  land  bounty  had  been  offered  for  defrayment  of  expense  of  boring,  in  case 
competent  geological  authority  should  approve  the  venture.  Though  my  re- 
port to  the  Governor  was  unfavorable,  I  have  been  informed  that  the  company 


SALT    ENTERPEISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  263 

In  November,  1859,  I  paid  Saginaw  and  vicinity  a  geo- 
logical visit.  The  East  Saginaw  well  was  then  (Novem- 
ber 10)  down  445  feet,  and  Dr.  Lathrop  submitted  to  my 
examination  a  complete  series  of  rock  samples  brought  up. 
Comparing  these  with  the  rocks  already  studied  at  their 
outcrops  on  three  sides  of  the  peninsula,  I  perceived  that 
a  very  satisfactory  correspondence  existed,  and  announced 
that  the  bottom  of  the  Marshall  Sandstones,  the  reservoir 
of  the  brine,  would  be  reached  at  about  800  feet,  and 
that  there  would  be  no  need  of  continuing  to  a  greater 
depth,  unless  it  were  decided  to  penetrate  to  the  Onondaga 
salt  formation. 

In  February,  1860,  I  made  further  examinations  of  the 
geological  situation  at  Grand  Rapids.  These  fully  con- 
firmed former  conclusions.  There  was  furnished  at  this 
time,  by  A.  0.  Currier,  a  detailed  list  of  borings  bixraght 
up  from  the  Grand  River  Salt  Company's  well,  then  (Feb- 
ruary 11)  156  feet  deep.  Mr.  R.  E.  Butterworth's  well 
was  146  feet  down,  and  he  supplied  me  with  a  register 
of  rocks  pierced,  subsequent  information  being  added  by 
Mr.  Martin  Metcalf,  to  the  depth  of  490  feet.  I  gave  a 
public  address  in  Lyceum  Hall,  on  "  Salt  and  its  Geological 
Relations,"  in  which  I  set  forth  my  conception  of  the 
geological  situation  in  Michigan.  On  returning  home  I 
addressed  a  communication  to  the  superintendent  of  the 
Saginaw  Salt  Works,  on  "  The  Salt  Borings  of  Saginaw," 
with  the  view  of  making  clear  my  views,  as  State  Geolo- 
gist, of  the  geological  conditions  and  prospects  under 
which  his  enterprise  was  conducted.  It  was  published  in 

interested  persuaded  the  legislature  to  make  over  the  grant,  when  they  bored 
a  hole  and  left  it  as  a  record  of  successful  business  management.  The  com- 
pany never  informed  me  of  this  procedure, —  nor  did  Governor  Austin. 


264  SPARKS    FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

the  Saginaw  Enterprise  in  February.  The  East  Saginaw 
salt  well  was  completed  February  24.  It  was  669  feet 
deep,  and  yielded  brine  of  94°.  It  had  reached  the  solid 
rock  at  the  depth  of  92  feet,  and  after  passing  through 
the  coal  measures,  with  their  initial  and  terminal  sand- 
stones, pierced  the  carboniferous  limestone,  and  found  the 
Michigan  Salt  Group  of  strata  169  feet  thick,  and  emi- 
nently saliferous,  though  from  the  compact  nature  of  the 
formation  the  brine  was  very  limited  in  amount.  In  the 
Napoleon  sandstone  beneath,  109  feet  thick,  the  reservoir 
of  the  brine  was  struck  which  furnished  an  abundant 
supply,  and  was  obtained  at  almost  precisely  the  point 
which  geology  had  predicted.  The  well  terminated  near 
the  middle  of  the  sandstone.  On  June  12  I  again  visited 
the  salt  works.  Preparations  were  making  to  bore  a  sec- 
ond and  larger  well.  This  was  subsequently  carried  to 
806  feet,  extending  through  the  sandstone  and  penetrating 
the  underlying  shale  64  feet.  By  July,  1860,  a  "block" 
had  been  erected,  and  boiling  commenced.  Before  the 
close  of  the  year  4,000  barrels  of  salt  had  been  manufac- 
tured, and  four  other  companies  had  commenced  boring 
at  different  points  along  the  river. 

During  the  season  of  1860  careful  geological  explora- 
tions were  conducted  around  the  Michigan  shores-  of  Lake 
Huron  and  the  islands  at  the  head  of  the  lake.  Thus  the 
correct  view  of  the  geology  of  the  peninsula  was  more  per- 
fectly defined,  and  more  permanently  settled.  The  most  im- 
portant determination  in  this  connection  was  the  identifi- 
cation of  a  great  development  of  the  gypseous  formation  of 
the  state  in  a  high  ridge  which  approaches  near  the  lake 
about  four  miles  south  of  Tawas.  The  gypseous  series 
had  been  traced  in  the  salt-boring  at  East  Saginaw,  and 


SALT    ENTERPRISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  265 

here  was  seen  a  ridge  corresponding  to  the  proper  place 
of  outcrop  of  the  formation,  immediately  below  the  car- 
boniferous limestone  seen  at  Point  au  Gres.  There  had 
been  a  strolling  explorer  in  the  vicinity  in  search  of  lead, 
copper,  coal,  and  anything  else  whatever  in  the  minera- 
logical  series,  —  he  seemed  to  have  no  idea  of  the  orderly 
arrangement  of  things,  —  and  he  had  already  bored  in 
this  ridge.  This  "  Professor  "  found  nothing  which  seemed 
to  reward  his  efforts,  but  I  discovered  among  the  debris 
left  by  him  some  small  fragments  which  I  at  once  iden- 
tified as  belonging  to  the  gypseous  series.  This  entirely 
confirmed  the  induction  already  reached.  When  Mr.  C. 
H.  Whittemore,  of  Tawas,  assured  me  that  several  fruit- 
less explorations  had  been  made  in  the  ridge,  I  assured 
him,  in  return,  that  there  was  the  place  for  the  great 
gypsum  formation  of  the  state.  Indications  of  the  out- 
crop of  the  formation  had  already  been  detected  on  the 
east  side  of  Saginaw  Bay,  near  the  mouth  of  Pigeon 
Eiver. 

Gypsum  had  been  reported  many  years  before  in  the 
bed  of  the  lake  off  Whitestone  Point,  but  the  high  wind 
which  prevailed  when  I  was  there  prevented  obtaining  a 
view  of  it.  This  point  is  several  miles  south  of  the  ridge 
in  which  I  identified  the  gypsum  formation.  "  Plaster 
Point,"  in  the  same  vicinity,  which  really  presents  an 
exposure  of  the  gypseous  formation,  with  most  of  the 
gypsum  dissolved  out,  is  also  some  miles  from  the  proper 
place  of  outcrop  of  the  formation,  at  such  elevation  above 
the  lake  as  to  afford  practicable  working. 

In  November,  1860,  a  resume"  of  results  of  the  geolog- 
ical survey  was  published  in  the  Detroit  Tribune  by  Henry 
Barns,  who  took  an  active  interest  in  the  work. 


266  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

In  December  the  Chicago  Academy  of  Sciences  made 
an  excursion  to  the  University,  and  the  State  Geologist, 
by  request,  devoted  an  hour  to  an  exposition  of  the  results 
of  the  geological  survey.  A  report  of  this  lecture  was 
contained  in  the  Chicago  papers. 

The  First  Biennial  Report  of  the  Progress  of  the  Geo- 
logical Survey  was  presented  to  the  governor,  and  by  him 
to  the  legislature,  on  the  31st  of  December  1860.  Some 
later  developments  connected  with  the  salt  interest  were 
added  during  the  printing  of  the  report.  The  Detroit 
Advertiser  published,  in  January  1861,  a  copious  resume 
of  the  results,  and  the  Tribune  published,  during  the  same 
month,  very  extended  extracts,  including  evei-ything  re- 
lating to  the  production  of  salt.  An  advance  copy  of  the 
geological  poi'tion  of  the  report  was  sent  to  the  American 
Journal  of  Science,  August  14,  and  was  noticed  in  Sep- 
tember. The  complete  report  was  distributed  between 
November  16  and  November  30,  1861. 

In  this  report  the  following  estimate  was  recorded  of 
the  importance  of  the  salt  interest,  then  just  emerging 
into  notice :  "  If  the  geological  indications  on  which  I 
found  my  opinions  are  not  fallacious,  we  have  the  most 
magnificent  saliferous  basin  upon  the  continent  east  of 
the  Mississippi"  (p.  165).  "The  vast  geographical  extent 
of  the  salt  basin  of  Michigan,  together  with  the  extraor- 
dinary strength  of  the  brine,  furnish  strong  reasons  to 
anticipate  that  at  no  distant  day  Michigan  will  be  the 
leading  salt-producing  state  in  the  Union"  (p.  193).  This 
was  said  ten  months  after  the  success  of  the  first  well. 
In  1880  Michigan  produced  more  salt  than  any  other  state 
in  the  Union,  the  official  inspectors  reporting  2,678,598 
barrels. 


SALT   ENTERPKISE   IN   MICHIGAN.  267 

The  outbreak  of  civil  war  interfered  with  the  organized 
prosecution  of  field  work  during  1861  ;  but  the  State 
Geologist  found  abundant  occupation,  an  important  part 
of  which  consisted  in  the  office  and  laboratory  investiga- 
tion of  the  materials  accumulated  during  the  two  pre- 
ceding years.* 

Let  us  understand  now  what  the  researches  of  1859-61 
succeeded  in  establishing.  They  showed  that  the  forma- 
tions of  the  lower  peninsula  of  Michigan  constitute  a  series 
of  successively  overlying  dish-shaped  structures,  with  mar- 
gins approximately  concentric  with  each  other  and  with 
the  boundaries  of  the  peninsula.  The  uppermost  rock 
formation  occupies  nearly  the  central  part  of  the  penin- 
sula, and  has  less  geographical  extent  than  any  of  the 
others.  This  is  the  Coal  Measures,  consisting  of  a  sand- 
stone at  or  near  the  top,  and  another  named  the  Parma 
Sandstone  at  the  bottom.  Next  below  is  the  Carbonifer- 
ous Limestone,  the  outcropping  border  of  which  is  some- 
what farther  from  the  center  of  the  peninsula.  Next  is 
the  Michigan  Salt  Group,  which  actually  underlies  the 
whole  central  part  of  the  peninsula,  and  outcrops  at 

*Some  of  these  scientific  results  were  published  as  follows:  Notice  of  the 
Rnrkx  lijing  between  the  Carboniferous  Limestone  of  the  Lower  Peninsula  of 
Mirliitjiin.  and  the  Limestones  of  the  Hamilton  Group,  ivith  Descriptions  of  some 
Cephalopoda  supposed  to  be  new  to  science.  Amer.  Jour.  Science,  II.  xxxiii.  352- 
3iii;.  May  1863;  Sa't  Manufacture  of  the  Saginaw  Valley,  Hunt's  Merchants1  Mag- 
azine, 209-2:33,  Sept  1862 ;  On  the  Saliferous  Rocks  axd  Salt  Spring-:  of  Michigan, 
Amer.  Jour.  Science,  II.  xxxiv,  307-316,  Nov.  1862;  Descriptions  of  Fossils  from 
thf  Marshall  and  Huron  Groups  of  Michigan,  Proc.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci.,  Philadelphia, 
405-430,  Sept.  1862;  On  the  Identification  of  the  CalskiU  Red  Sandstone  with  the 
Chetnung,  Amer.  Jour.  Sci.  II.  xxxv.  61-2,  Jan.  1863;  Descriptions  of  Fossils  from 
the  Yellow  Sandxto-ie*  lyi'ig  beneath  the  "  Burlington  Limestone'1''  at  Burlington, 
Iowa,  Proc.  Acad.  Nat.  Sci..  Philadelphia.  Jan.  1863.  pp  2-25.  These  articles  all 
related  to  the  formation  which  servos  as  the  reservoir  of  the  brine  supplying  the 
principal  wells  along  the  Saginaw  River,  and  were  contributions  toward  fixing 
its  geological  age  and  characteristics.  Other  investigations  were  published  at 
later  dates. 


268  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Grand  Rapids  on  the  west,  and  on  the  shores  of  Saginaw 
Bay  on  the  east,  and  undei'lies  Washtenaw  and  Jackson 
counties  on  the  south.  Next,  in  descending  order,  comes 
the  Marshall  Group,  consisting  chiefly  of  sandstones  whose 
outcrops  create  the  most  elevated  and  hilly  belt  of  the 
whole  peninsula.  The  other  formations  follow  downward 
as  shown  in  the  following  table: 

(  1.  Woodville  Sandstone. 

I.  Upper  Carboniferous.  -  2.  Coal  Measures  proper. 

(3.  Parma  Sandstone  ("Conglomerate"). 
1.  Carboniferous  Limestone. 

II.  Lower  Carboniferous^  2-  Michigan  Salt  Group. 

(  (a)  Napoleon  Sandstone. 
Marshall  Group.  •]  (6)  Red  Shale 

I  (c)  Marshall  Sandstone. 

1.  Huron  Group...  \  <«>  J?'4?80™1  ChemnnS'   „ 

III.  Devonian 1  ^6>  Black  Shale  <"  Genesee  ">• 

2.  Hamilton  Group. 

.3.  Corniferous  Limestone. 

(  1.  Lower  Helderberg  or  Water  Limestone. 

IV.  Upper  Silurian -j  2.  Salina  Group. 

(  3.  Niagara  Limestone. 

This  definite  exhibit  of  the  geological  succession  in  the 
lower  peninsula  had  never  been  made  before.  The  Car- 
boniferous Limestone  had  never  before  been  identified  in 
the  state,  but  had  been  generally  confounded  with  the 
Monroe  and  Mackinac  limestones.  The  Michigan  Salt 
Group  was  a  totally  new  and  previously  unsuspected 
formation.  It  is  repeated  in  no  other  state  in  the  Union, 
and  is  known  elsewhere  only  in  New  Brunswick,  Nova 
Scotfa  and  Cape  Breton,  where  later  researches  have  shown 
it  to  possess  a  still  greater  development.  The  fact  that 
the  formation  underlies  all  the  central  part  of  the  state 
was  not  only  unsuspected,  but  was  a  fact  out  of  harmony 
with  the  theory  then  prevailing  respecting  the  origin  of 
gypseous  deposits.  Geologists  generally  had  held  gypsum 


SALT    ENTEEPEISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  269 

to  be  a  secondary  product,  resulting  from  chemical  reac- 
tions in  the  rocks,  and  especially  from  the  action  of  sul- 
phuric acid  on  limestones  or  dolomites.*  The  conception 
of  a  continuous  gypsum  formation  having  a  sedimentary 
origin  had  probably  seldom  if  ever  been  entertained. 
That  view  resulted  from  the  present  writer's  researches, 
and  at  this  day  scarcely  any  other  finds  defenders.  Salt 
basins,  therefore,  are  the  sites  of  ancient  areas  of  salt  water 
which  have  gradually  dried  up.f 

Before  these  investigations  the  gypsum  of  Mackinac 
and  Grand  Rapids  had  been  regarded  as  of  the  same 
geological  age.  It  was  now  shown  that  the  Mackinac 
gypsum  is  of  the  age  of  that  in  central  New  York  and 
on  Sandusky  Bay.  It  followed  that  the  whole  peninsula 
is  underlaid  by  a  second  and  deeper  salt  basin, —  the 
Salina  formation,  and  that  quite  probably  this  basin 
would  also  be  found  a  source  of  brine  supplies.  The  re- 
port showed  that  the  salt  springs  of  the  peninsula  follow 
especially  the  lines  of  outcrop  of  the  principal  salt  basin 
and  mark  the  geographical  boundaiy  of  the  formation.  It 
showed  that  the  area  of  the  peninsula  had  never  been 
subjected  to  disturbing  agencies  ;  hence  the  strata  were 
but  little  fissured,  and  few  opportunities  existed  for  the 

*  See  Reports  on  the  Geology  of  New  York.  This  improbable  view  is  even 
still  held,  in  reference  to  the  gypsum  of  central  New  York,  by  James  D.  Dana 
(System  of  Mineralogy,  614, 639;  Manual  of  Geo'ogy,  3d.  ed.,  234.)  Without  doubt, 
sulphuric  acid  may  result  from  the  action  of  oxygen  on  sulphuretted  hydrogen. 
Without  doubt  the  reaction  of  sulphuric  acid  and  limestone  produces  gypsum. 
But  sulphuric  acid  may  also  result  from  the  decomposition  of  gypsum,  and,  as 
a  fact,  native  sulphuric  acid  is  not  found  in  any  connection  with  sulphuretted 
hydrogen  except  where  evidences  of  the  presence  of  gypsum  also  exist  More- 
over, the  lenticular  masses  of  gypsum,  inclosed  in  regular  beds  in  the  clays  of 
the  Salina  group,  present  vastly  more  the  appearance  of  the  relics  of  a  once  con- 
tinuous formation  dissolved  away  than  of  the  products  of  chemical  action  in 
place. 

t  See  the  writer's  Sketclies  of  Creation,  ch.  xxvi. 


270  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

ascent  of  brine  from  deep  underlying  formations.  It 
raised  the  query  how  brine,  which  is  heavier  than  water, 
should  be  made  to  ascend  several  hundred  feet  through 
fissures  accessible  to  shallower  fresh  waters,  even  if  such 
fissures  existed,  arid  showed  that  of  necessity  the  undi- 
luted brine  from  any  deep-seated  formation  must  be 
pumped  up;  and  that  if  salt  water  overflows  at  an  arte- 
sian boring,  it  results  simply  from  a  head  of  fresh  water 
mingled  with  some  accidental  supply  of  brine.  It  showed 
that  the  marginal  salt  springs  of  the .  state  are  simply 
drippings  from  the  salt-bearing  formations,  prompted  by 
the  descent  of  fresh  waters  into  them,  and  greatly  diluted 
by  rains  falling  near  the  locations  of  the  springs.  It 
showed  that  the  salt  springs  of  Michigan,  which  had  been 
the  object  of  so  much  exploration,  legislation  and  expendi- 
ture, possess  no  importance  except  as  "  licks "  for  wild 
animals,  and  that  the  seventy-two  sections  of  "  salt  spring 
lands"  patented  to  the  state  never  possessed  any  value 
above  that  of  ordinary  agricultural  lands.* 

In  July  1862,  in  consequence  of  some  new  facts  com- 
municated by  Dr.  Lathrop,  I  revisited  the  Saginaw  region, 
and  studied  all  the  new  developments.  Dr.  Lathrop  sup- 
plied, in  addition  to  previous  information,  specimens  of 
chips  from  the  "Orange  County  Company's"  well,  and  Mr. 
Sutherland  furnished  borings  from  the  "  Ann  Arbor  and 
Saginaw  Company's "  well.  I  had  also  the  opportunity 
of  consulting  a  complete  register  of  the  "  Carrollton  Mill 
Salt  Company's "  well,  and  got  some  information  from 
Davis  &  Co.,  of  Zilwaukee,  and  other  facts  concerning  the 

*  Most  of  these  points  were  brought  out  in  the  Report  submitted  December 
31, 1860,  and  printed  in  1861.  See  especially  pp.  165-6. 


SALT   ENTERPRISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  271 

wells  of  J.  H.  Hill,  and  Paine  and  Briggs.  Combining, 
now,  all  the  information  accumulated  to  this  date,  and 
making  careful  comparisons  and  tabulations,  I  was  led  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Bay  City  wells  (Bay  City,  Clark's, 
Braddock's  and  Fitzhugh's),  which  were  much  shallower 
than  the  wells  farther  up  the  river,  found  their  supplies 
of  brine  in  the  Parma  Sandstone,  at  the  base  of  the  Coal 
Measures.  This  added  a  third  productive  salt  basin  to 
the  outfit  of  the  peninsula.  1  had  indeed  stated  in  my 
official  Report,  that  "  Brine  is  found  issuing  at  the  out- 
crops of  the  Coal  Measures,  the  Gypseous  Group,  the  Na- 
poleon Group,  the  Marshall  Group,  and  the  Onondaga 
Salt  Group  (p.  165).  I  had  also  stated  (pp.  97,  152)  that 
brine  of  14°  strength  had  been  obtained  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Coal  Measures.  But  it  was  now  shown  that  the 
Parma  Sandstone  at  the  base  of  the  Coal  Measures  is 
actually  a  productive  brine  reservoir  supplied  from  the 
Coal  Measures,  as  the  sandstones  of  the  Marshall  Group 
constitute  a  brine  reservoir  supplied  from  the  Michigan 
Salt  Group.  A  paper  was  drawn  up  giving  an  exposition 
of  the  new  views,  and  published  in  the  Saginaw  Courier, 
in  the  latter  part  of  July  1862.  It  was  stated,  as  an  in- 
ference from  the  new  determination,  that  Dr.  Fitzhugh, 
in  the  well  at  Bay  City,  then  in  process  of  boring,  "  ought 
to  strike  the  Napoleon  Sandstone  at  996  feet,  and  the 
Red  Shale  at  1,105  feet.  "  These  distances,"  it  was  added, 
"  may  be  lessened  to  the  extent  of  30  feet,"  in  conse- 
quence of  some  indications  of  an  error  in  the  records  of 
the  well,  as  kept  by  the  person  in  charge.  The  subse- 
quent result  showed  that  the  Napoleon  Sandstone  was 
struck  (in  consequence  of  a  great  thinning  of  Michigan 


272  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

Salt  Group)  at  916  feet;  but  the  brine  obtained  at  this 
point  possessed  96°  of  strength.* 

A  subsequent  year  witnessed  another  confirmation  of 
what  had  been  only  a  geological  inference.  I  had  all 
along  pointed  out  the  existence  of  the  Onondaga  Salt 
Group  underneath  the  peninsula,  and  expressed  the  be- 
lief that  it  must  prove  more  productive  than  in  central 
New  York.  I  advised  the  enterprise  of  boring  into  that 
formation  to  test  its  productiveness;  but  it  was  only  when 
the  Port  Austin  well  became  a  success  that  the  theory 
received  its  verification.  Rock  salt  was  subsequently  dis- 
covered at  Alpena,  and  at  Goderich  in  Ontario,  where  it 
has  become  an  important  article  of  commerce.  Still  later 
experiments  have  developed  an  excellent  supply  of  brine 
at  Manistee,  and  also  at  Muskegon. 

The  geological  inference  of  gypsum  in  the  ridge  south 
of  Tawas  has  been  also  fully  confirmed.  During  the  war, 
a  gentleman  wrote  to  me  for  an  indication  of  favorable 
localities  for  speculative  explorations.  I  directed  him  to 
the  ridge  in  question.  An  inexpensive  boring  determined 
the  existence  of  a  heavy  bed  of  gypsum.  He  took  a  claim, 
as  I  have  been  informed,  in  exchange  for  an  old  rifle. 
After  a  little  excavation  the  gypsum  was  fully  exposed, 
and  he  sold  his  claim  for  a  large  sum  of  money. f 

*This  discovery  was  embodied  in  the  articles  written  this  year  (1862)  for  the 
Merchants'  Magazine  and  the  Amer.  Jour,  of  Science.  It  has  been  shown  by  later 
artesian  borings  that  all  the  formations  of  the  peninsula  are  somewhat  saliferous, 
while  in  the  Huron  Group,  those  substances  known  as  "bitterns  '"  exist  in  pre- 
dominating abundance,  and  give  origin  to  the  celebrated  "  mineral  wells  "  of 
Michigan. 

t  It  is  of  course  necessary  to  say  that  the  speculator  neglected  several  things. 
He  never  compensated  the  author  of  his  good  fortune.  He  never  thanked  him 
for  the  advice.  He  never  even  reported  to  him  the  result.  He  did  not  even 
inform  the  purchasers  of  his  claim  who  had  guided  him  to  the  discovery.  Finally, 
the  present  owners  of  the  quarry,  it  is  to  be  supposed,  are  not  oppressed  with 
anxiety  over  the  toil  and  study  which  guided  to  the  development  of  the  valuable 
property. 


SALT    ENTERPRISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  273 

The  gypsum  business  at  that  point  grew  into  an  indus- 
try of  large  importance. 

I  proceed  now,  from  a  sense  of  duty  to  the  interests 
of  truth,  to  make  some  statements  aimed  at  a  certain 
little  popular  delusion.  Soon  after  the  successful  issue  of 
the  salt  enterprise  in  the  Saginaw  valley,  certain  ancient 
wiseacres  gave  it  out  that  Dr.  Hough  ton  had  always  held 
the  Saginaw  valley  to  be  the  center  of  the  salt  basin  of 
the  peninsula.  They  had  been  personally  intimate  with 
Dr.  Houghton.  He  was  the  original  discoverer  of  the 
existence  of  salt  underneath  the  valley.  So  they  dwelt 
on  the  far-seeing  sagacity  of  Dr.  Houghton,  and  dilated 
on  the  interest  of  the  delayed  fulfillment  of  his  predic- 
tions. The  pseudo-tradition  went  into  the  newspapers. 
Then  it  was  copied  into  the  pamphlet  histories  of  salt 
development.  Then  it  outcropped  in  official  reports,  and 
went  on  record  from  the  pens  of  men  who  only  knew 
that  such  claims  were  afloat. 

Now  Dr.  Houghton  was  a  man  of  superior  scientific 
sagacity  and  attainments.  He  held  an  honorable  position 
among  the  scientific  men  of  his  time.  His  name  reflects 
luster  upon  the  history  of  the  state.  Moreover,  he  was 
industrious.  He  was  abundant  in  feasible  and  plausible 
projects.  He  had  a  wise  tact  in  the  management  of  men, 
and  in  gaming  success.  He  never  seemed  to  give  utter- 
ance to  all  he  knew.  He  left  the  impression  that  he 
held  an  immense  i*eserve  of  knowledge,  which  his  inter- 
viewer was  at  liberty  to  magnify  according  to  fancy.  It 
was  undoubtedly  a  prudent  spirit  which  restrained  pre- 
cipitancy in  the  enunciation  of  opinions  or  conjectures, 
and  kept  his  counsels  to  himself  until  completely  prepared 
to  put  them  into  execution.  It  left  every  person  at  liberty 
18 


274  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

to  attribute  to  Dr.  Houghton  very  much  more  than  he 
ever  directly  expressed,  and  gave  his  methods  an  air  of 
mystery  which  really  set  imaginations  to  work.  But,  in 
fact,  he  was  chiefly  bent  on  enterprises  which  had  an  eco- 
nomical outlook;  though  in  the  upper  peninsula  he  ac- 
complished a  large  amount  of  careful  stratigraphical  and 
mineralogical  work.  It  is  not  to  be  taken  as  any  dis- 
paragement of  Dr.  Houghton  that  he  had  no  such  concep- 
tion of  the  geology  of  the  lower  peninsula  as  would  render 
possible  the  theory  which  has  been  attributed  to  him. 

In  the  first  place,  he.  had  no  conception  of  the  existence 
of  any  "salt  basin"  whatever  in  the  peninsula.  He  held 
the  opinion  that  there  existed  a  general  strike  of  the 
rocks  from  northeast  to  southwest.  In  his  Report,  1839 
(p.  9),  he  says:  "The  line  of  bearing  of  the  members  con- 
stituting this  group  of  rocks,  not  only  in  the  northern 
but  in  the  southern  portion  of  the  peninsula,  is  regularly 
northeasterly  and  southwesterly.  *  *  *  My  examina- 
tions would  lead  me  to  infer  that  the  coal  of  the  central 
portions  of  our  state,  and  that  upon  the  Illinois  River,  is 
embraced  in  a  rock  which  belongs  to  the  same  portion  of 
the  great  basin  [the  Mississippi  valley].  *  *  *  I  am 
also  led  to  conclude  that  the  portion  of  the  rock  series 
which  in  Illinois  and  Wisconsin  embraces  the  ores  of 
lead,  is  identical  with  a  portion  of  the  rock  formation 
which  occurs  in  the  northern  part  of  our  own  state,  —  a 
circumstance  which  might  fairly  have  been  inferred  from 
the  general  line  of  bearing  of  the  rock  "  (p.  10).  *  ' 
"A  slight  glance  at  the  map  of  our  state  will  sufficiently 
explain  the  relation  which  Saginaw  Bay,  of  Lake  Huron, 
holds  to  the  line  of  bearing  already  mentioned.  This 
great  arm  of  that  lake  stretches  in  a  southwesterly  direc- 


SALT    ENTERPRISE    IN    MICHIGAN.  275 

tion,  making  a  deep  indentation  in  the  peninsula,  and 
occupying  a  denuded  space  in  the  sandstones  just  at  that 
point  where  the  latter  comes  in  contact  with  the  lime- 
stone of  the  north"  (p.  10).  *  *  *  "These  hills  [the 
highlands  of  the  Au  Sable]  follow  the  line  of  bearing  of 
the  rock  formations,  and  no  doubt  extend  diagonally  com- 
pletely across  the  state  "  (p.  6). 

These,  and  numerous  similar  expressions  in  his  reports, 
are  entirely  inconsistent  with  that  dish-shaped  conforma- 
tion which  we  have  found  to  exist,  and  inconsistent  with 
any  conception  of  a  "  salt  basin  "  in  the  state.  The  first 
foreshadowings  of  any  basin  arrangement  are  found  in 
the  reports  of  Mr.  C.  C.  Douglass  and  Mr.  Bela  Hubbard, 
dated  January  4  and  January  24,  1841.  Mr.  Douglass 
remarks  that  "  the  same  rocks,  with  one  or  two  excep- 
tions, occur  on  both  sides  of  the  state,  having  the  same 
geological  position  ;  also,  they  have  very  nearly  parallel 
and  uniform  positions"  (p.  103).  This  seems  to  contem- 
plate the  existence  of  a  synclinal  trough  running  north 
and  south  across  the  peninsula.  Mr.  Hubbard,  however, 
traces  the  outcrop  of  the  Coal  Measure  rocks  from  east 
to  west  across  the  southern  part  of  the  peninsula,  and 
thus  more  distinctly  shadows  forth  the  conception  of  a 
basin  structure  (p.  125).  He  says,  moreover,  "  All  the 
rocks  on  the  eastern  slope  of  the  peninsula  south  of  Sagi- 
naw  Bay  have  a  general  dip  northwesterly,  while  the  dip 
along  the  southei'ly  and  westerly  border  of  the  basin  of 
coal-bearing  rocks  is  such  as  to  indicate  the  counties  of 
Clinton  and  Gratiot  as  occupying  nearly  the  central  part 
of  the  coal  basin"  (p.  137).  This,  indeed,  is  a  recognition 
of  a  basin  structure,  but  it  locates  its  center  more  than 
fifty  miles  southwest,  of  the  Saginaw  valley.  Moreover, 


276  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

this  was  not  Dr.  Houghton's,  but  Mr.  Hubbard's,  idea. 
Following  Hubbard's  suggestion,  the  basin-structure  was 
represented  upon  the  geolqgical  map  of  the  Western  States 
contained  in  Professor  James  Hall's  Report  on  the  Fourth 
District  of  New  York,  which  appeared  in  1844. 

In  the  second  place,  Dr.  Houghton  had  an  erroneous 
conception  of  the  mode  of  occurrence  of  the  brine  springs 
of  the  peninsula.  In  his  Report,  dated  January  22,  1838,* 
after  enumerating  a  large  number  of  salt  springs,  he  says: 
"  We  can  only  hope  to  obtain  a  permanent  supply  of  brine 
of  sufficient  strength  from  the  springs  of  our  state  by 
sinking  shafts  through  the  rocky  strata  until  the  salt- 
bearing  rock  be  reached,  be  the  distance  more  or  less" 
(p.  297).  These  shafts  were  to  be  sunk  at  "the  points 
enumerated."  Here  we  see  no  indications  of  a  salt  basin 
and  an  origination  of  salt  springs  by  an  overflow  at  the 
margin.  In  his  Report  dated  January  1,  1839,f  concern- 
ing the  improvement  of  the  State  Salt  Springs,  he  says: 
"  The  brine  springs  of  our  state,  like  those  of  Ohio,  Penn- 
sylvania and  Virginia,  emanate  from  a  rock  which  lies 
deep,  being  covered  with  a  mass  of  rock  and  earthy  matter 
which  (in  order  to  procure  salt  water  that  can  be  eco- 
nomically used)  it  is  necessary  to  penetrate "  (p.  39). 
Speaking  of  the  situation  in  Virginia,  Ohio  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, he  says:  "The  salt  rock  lies  at  considerable  depth, 
and  is  overlay ed  by  strata  of  sandstone,  limestone,  slate, 
etc.,  and  through  fissures  in  these  overlying  rocks  the 
salt  water,  much  diluted  by  influx  of  fresh  water,  origi- 
nally rose  to  the  surface  (p.  40). 

Mr.  Bela  Hubbard,  also,  in  his  Report  of  1840,  retained 
the  same  belief.  He  says:  "By  reference  to  a  map  of  the 

*  House  Documents,  1838,  276-316.       t  House  Documents,  1839.  pp.  39-45. 


SALT    ENTERPRISE   IN   MICHIGAN.  277 

state,  it  will  be  apparent  that  the  strongest  brines  (among 
which  are  included  those  in  the  vicinity  of  these  borings) 
make  their  appearance  along  a  line  which  will  be  found 
to  correspond  with  the  synclinal  axis,  or  axis  of  the  dip 
of  the  rocks  composing  the  great  peninsula  basin,  —  a 
circumstance  which  would  be  looked  for  from  the  fact 
that  the  ordinary  law  of  gravitation  would  conduct  the 
strong  brines  to  the  lowest  levels  of  the  rock  sti-ata" 
(p.  139).  Commenting  on  the  geology  of  Lucius  Lyon's 
well,  at  Grand  Rapids,  he  also  says:  "The  brine  now 
obtained  at  a  depth  below  the  above  of  about  230  feet 
may  be  supposed  to  proceed  by  veins  from  the  lower  salt 
rock  lying  at  a  still  greater  depth,  and  from  which  the 
strongest  and  best  supplies  of  brine  in  our  state  may  be 
expected  to  be  obtained"  (p.  140). 

In  the  third  place,  he  had  an  erroneous  conception  of 
tJie  geological  succession  in  the  peninsula.  In  his  special 
Report  on  salt  springs,  dated  1839,  he  states  his  plan  to 
be  to  sink  a  shaft  on  the  Tittabawassee  to  the  "  bed  rock." 
The  "salt  rock"  he  supposed  "to  be  at  a  depth  of  500 
to  700  feet "  from  the  bottom  of  the  shaft  (p.  42).  Then, 
speaking  of  the  well  near  Grand  Rapids,  he  says:  "The 
amount  of  rock-boring  required  will  not  vary  much  from 
that  at  the  Tittabawassee  salines  "  (p.  42).  Thus,  he  sup- 
posed both  situations  to  be  geologically  similar,  while,  in 
fact,  the  location  on  Grand  River  was  at  least  360  feet 
below  the  other,  and  was  separated  by  all  the  thickness 
of  the  coal  measures  and  the  carboniferous  limestone. 
With  similar  inaccuracy  he  considers  that  "  the  rocks  of 
this  northern  portion  of  the  peninsula  may  be  regarded 
as  referable  to  the  great  carboniferous  group  of  the  state  " 
(Report,  Feb.  4,  1839,  p.  2).  So  he  is  "led  to  conclude 


278  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

that  that  portion  of  the  rock  series  which,  in  Illinois  and 
Wisconsin,  embraces  the  ores  of  lead,  is  identical  with  a 
portion  of  the  rock  formation  which  occurs  in  the  north- 
ern part  of  our  state"  (p.  10).  Now,  the  lead  ores  referred 
to  are  found  in  the  lower  silurian,  while  the  Michigan 
rocks  are  Hamilton  and  Corniferous,  in  the  Devonian.  It 
is  not  pretended  that  such  errors  of  identification  reflect 
the  least  discredit  upon  their  author  ;  but,  being  facts, 
they  show  the  impossibility  of  a  truthful  conception  of 
the  geological  relations  of  the  brines  of  the  peninsula. 

Messrs.  Hubbard  and  Douglass  devoted  their  attention 
to  the  lower  peninsula,  while  Dr.  Houghton  was  mostly 
occupied  with  the  upper  peninsula.  The  assistants,  there- 
fore, acquired  a  more  thorough  acquaintance  with  the 
lower  peninsula,  and  I  never  look  over  their  reports  with- 
out a  feeling  of  admiration  for  the  general  accuracy  at- 
tained, in  the  face  of  the  gigantic  difficulties  presented 
by  the  unsettled  and  unimproved  condition  of  the  country. 
But  these  assistants  never  attained  an  entirely  correct 
correlation  of  the  formations  on  the  eastern,  western  and 
southern  slopes  of  the  peninsula. 

The  first  attempt  at  a  systematic  general  account  of 
the  stratification  of  the  peninsula  was  made  in  1840,  by 
Mr.  Hubbard.*  In  this  he  reached  several  important 
conclusions,  which,  under  the  authority  of  certain  later 
geologists,  were  ignored,  but  which,  with  a  more  thorough 
acquaintance  with  Michigan  geology,  have  been  admitted 
as  sound.  The  northern  outcrops  of  the  formations  of  the 
peninsula  were  not  reported  on  by  him  until  1841.f  In 
his  attempt  to  assign  them  to  their  proper  stratigraphical 
positions  he  fell  into  singular  errors,  and  introduced  into 

*  Mich.  Geol.  Rep.  1840,  p.  87.  t  Midi.  Geol.  Rep.  1841,  pp.  115, 136. 


SALT  ENTERPRISE   IN   MICHIGAN.  279 

the  most  elaborate  account  of  the  peninsula  which  was 
destined  to  be  published  for  twenty  years  a  confusion  of 
facts  which  rendered  the  geology  of  Michigan  an  enigma 
to  everyone  who  attempted  to  parallelize  the  rocks  with 
those  in  the  surrounding  states.*  The  following  is  Mr. 
Hubbard's  tabular  statement  of  the  succession  of  groups 
embraced  in  the  peninsula: 

A.  Erratic  Block  Group,  or  Diluvium. 

B.  Tertiary  Clays. 

C.  Coal  Measures,  I  and  2. 

D.  Sub-carboniferous  Sandstones,  II,  3. 

E.  Clay  and  Kidney  Ironstone  Formation,  III,  1. 

F.  Sandstone,  of  Point  aux  Barques,  II,  3. 

G.  Argillaceous  Slates  and  Flags  of  Lake  Huron,  III,  1. 
H.  Soft,  Lighkcolored  Sandstones,  II,  3. 

I.    Black,  Aluminous  Slate,  III,  1,  6. 

K.   Limerocks  of  Lake  Erie,  III,  2  and  3. 

In  this  table  the  numerals  affixed  at  the  right  indicate 
the  equivalents  given  in  the  table  of  formations  as  now 
established  (p.  268).  It  will  be  seen  that  Mr.  Hubbard's 
table  makes  no  separate  mention  of  the  formation  known 
as  the  Michigan  Salt  Group.  But,  on  the  contrary,  other 
formations  are  three  times  repeated.  The  groups  marked 
D,  F  and  H  are  but  different  outcrops  of  the  Marshall 
Group  (known  in  Ohio  as  the  Waverley  Group) ;  and  those 
marked  E,  G  and  I  but  different  outcrops  of  the  Kidney 
Iron,  or  Huron  Group.  Following  Dr.  Hough  ton  in  the 
report  of  1838,  Mr.  Hubbard  regarded  the  Point  aux 
Barques  sandstones  and  conglomerates  as  occupying  a 
position  beneath  the  Kidney  Iron  formation  of  the  south- 

*  See,  for  instance,  Professor  James  Hall's  Report  on  the  Geol.  of  the  Fourth 
District  of  New  York,  p.  519.  The  present  writer  explained  the  causes  of  this 
confusion  in  an  article  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Amer.  Phil.  Soc.^  xi,  59, 60, 
March  5, 1869. 


280  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

ern  part  of  the  state,  and  consequently  failed  to  identify 
the  underlying  shales.  In  the  next  place,  Mr.  Hubbard 
identified  with  the  Point  aux  Barques  shales  the  shales 
of  the  Michigan  Salt  Group  struck  in  the  salt  wells  at 
Grand  Rapids,  although  these  latter  actually  occupy  a 
position  above  the  Marshall  sandstones.  When,  therefore, 
these  sandstones  and  the  underlying  Huron  shales  were 
struck  in  the  boring  of  the  salt  wells,  they  were  supposed 
to  constitute  the  third  couplet  of  similar  strata,  and  are 
set  down  as  groups  H  and  I  in  the  above  table.* 

It  is  manifest  from  these  documentary  proofs  that  there 
were  not  in  existence  at  the  period  when  Dr.  Houghton 
gave  personal  attention  to  the  geology  of  the  peninsula, 
and  formed  his  judgments  on  the  geological  relations  of 
the  salt  springs,  any  such  correct  conceptions  of  the  basin- 
structure  of  the  peninsula,  the  geological  origin  of  the 
brine,  the  mode  of  occurrence  of  the  brine  springs,  or  the 
general  geological  constitution  of  the  peninsula,  as  ren- 
dered possible  the  belief  that  the  lowest  depression  of  the 
salt  basin  (or  basins)  of  the  peninsula  would  be  found 
under  the  Saginaw  valley.  Dr.  Houghton's  procedures-  in 
locating  the  two  state  artesian  salt  wells  are  in  accord- 
ance with  the  evidence  cited,  and  are  of  themselves  suffi- 
cient to  prove  that  he  did  not  entertain  the  belief  ascribed 
to  him.  If  such  beliefs  were  held,  why  did  he  not  con- 
centrate his  efforts  in  the  Saginaw  valley?  Why  locate 
one  well  on  the  Tittabawassee  and  the  other  on  the  west- 
ern slope  of  the  peninsula?  I  have  heard  one  solution 
of  the  mystery,  which  no  friend  of  Dr.  Houghton,  and  in- 
deed no  person  cognizant  of  his  personal  integrity,  would 
feel  disposed  to  urge  or  to  credit.  I  have  heard  that 
*  Report,  p.  133. 


SALT   ENTERPRISE   IN   MICHIGAN.  281 

one  survivor  of  the  period  when  the  "  wild  cat "  was  very 
troublesome  in  Michigan, —  one  of  the  fourteen  or  fifteen 
hundred  who  have  claimed  that  they  were  associated  with 
Dr.  Houghton  in  his  public  work, —  now  asserts  that  Dr. 
Houghton  privately  whispered  in  his  ear  that  he  put  the 
state  wells  on  the  Tittabawassee  and  Grand  rivers  for  the 
purpose  of  diverting  attention  from  the  Saginaw,  the  real 
center  of  the  salt  formation! 

With  profound  respect  for  the  real  ability  of  Dr.  Hough- 
ton,  with  an  unreserved  recognition  of  the  importance  of 
his  services  in  the  upper  peninsula,  I  feel  compelled  to 
record  the  opinion  that  the  time  has  arrived  for  dispell- 
ing some  of  the  myths  which  have  lingered  about  his 
memory,  and  for  denying,  with  the  proofs,  that  he  had 
any  correct  knowledge  of  the  geology  of  the  brines  of 
Michigan,  or  ever  imagined  that  the  most  promising  re- 
gion for  salt  enterprise  was  located  in  the  Saginaw  val- 
ley. The  existing  conception  respecting  the  geology  of 
Michigan  brines,  on  which  an  immense  and  widespread 
industry  has  been  built  up,  have  been  originated  in  later 
times,  and  by  other  investigators.  The  author  regrets, 
nevertheless,  that  his  own  connection  with  the  later  de- 
velopments, and  his  personal  relation  to  facts  and  their 
bearings  upon  each  other,  have  been  such  that  a  correct 
and  adequate  exposition  of  the  historical  data  could  not 
have  been  offered  from  some  other  pen.  A  full  history 
of  the  progress  of  ideas  and  the  succession  of  projects 
and  enterprises  connected  with  salt  development  in  Michi- 
gan, placed  on  record  and  published  by  authority,  would 
constitute  a  document  of  deep  interest  to  the  people  of 
Michigan,  and  a  record  whose  value  to  the  general  public 
would  increase  with  every  passing  decade. 


A  REMARKABLE  MAORI  MANUSCRIPT. 


r  I  ^HE  following  remarkable  manuscript  was  discovered 
-*-  by  the  agent  of  the  Public  Parsimony  Society  of  New 
Zealand  in  March  of  last  year.  There  is  a  cavern,  the 
entrance  to  which  is  about  eight  miles  from  Mt.  Pollux,  in 
Otago,  in  which  the  agent  was  hunting  for  diamonds  to 
sell  to  Mesdames  Vand  Erbuilt  and  Makke,  with  a  view 
to  paying  off  the  British  national  debt.  In  one  of  the 
dry  and  dust-covered  clefts  of  the  cavern,  about  a  hun- 
dred and  thirty-four  miles  from  the  entrance,  he  came 
upon  a  roll  which,  on  examination,  proved  to  be  covered 
with  characters  of  a  very  peculiar  kind,  and  which,  while 
they  seemed  to  be  a  form  of  writing,  were  totally  unin- 
telligible to  the  most  learned  Englishmen  in  Dunedin  and 
Auckland.  It  occurred  to  the  Governor,  however,  that  it 
might  be  possible  the  New  Zealanders  had  formerly  pos- 
sessed a  written  language,  all  traces  of  which  had  hith- 
erto escaped  discovery.  He  therefore  summoned  the  old- 
est and  gravest  of  the  native  arikis  of  Maui,  and  demanded 
whether  he  could  give  any  account  of  the  document,  or  the 
characters  in  which  it  was  written.  The  old  man  at  first 
seemed  desirous  to  deny  all  knowledge  of  either;  but  after 
urging,  and  the  stimulus  of  some  British  threats,  he 
consented  to  make  a  revelation  of  what  had  for  many 
years  been  his  nation's  great  secret.  The  Maories,  he 
said,  had  formerly  employed  a  written  language.  They 


A    KEMAEKABLE   MAORI    MANU.SCRIPT.  283 

were  an  educated  people,  and  had  numerous  libraries; 
but  when  the  British  took  possession  of  their  islands,  hav- 
ing heard  that  they  were  devourers  of  books,  their  great 
ariki  made  a  decree  that  all  books  and  manuscripts  should 
be  totally  destroyed,  with  the  view  of  starving  the  Brit- 
ish and  driving  them  back  to  their  own  islands.  The 
decree  was  faithfully  executed,  but  this  one  document 
seems  to  have  escaped  destruction;  and  this  old  Maori  re- 
luctantly lent  his  aid  in  translating  it  into  English. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  ancient  civilization  of  the 
Maories  was  exceedingly  analogous  to  that  of  the  modern 
United  States  —  many  of  the  facts  stated  presenting  a 
most  astonishing  parallel.  This  circumstance  gives  new 
plausibility  to  Mr.  A.  H.  Keane's  recently  propounded  the- 
ory that  the  Polynesian  race  is  really  a  modification  of 
the  Mediterranean.* 

The  British  have  a  foreboding  that  the  New  Zealander 
will  one  day  stand  on  the  ruins  of  London  Bridge  and 
moralize  over  the  magnitude  of  the  civilization  gone  to 
decay;  but  here  the  visitor  from  London  Bridge  may  well 
contemplate  with  astonishment  these  traces  of  a  vanished 
Maori  civilization,  which  only  by  a  mere  chance  has  es- 
caped from  absolute  oblivion. 

The  governor  of  New  Zealand  having  sent  me  the 
translated  document,  I  have  the  honor  of  being  the  first 
to  bring  it  to  the  attention  of  the  world.  It  possesses 
great  archaeological  and  ethnological  interest.  It  reads 
as  follows: 

*  On  this,  see  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  London,  February 
1880,  Nature  xxiii,  199-203  et  seq. 


284  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

THE  KEWAHWENAW  METHOD. 

BY  AN  OPPONENT  OF  THEM  LITTI  RAREFEL  HERZ. 

Of  all  intellectual  advances  made  in  recent  times,  none 
surpasses  in  importance  the  introduction  of  the  Kewah- 
wenaw  method;  none  promises  more  for  the  well  being  of 
properly  regulated  science,  education  in  the  three  arz, 
and  free  (and  easy)  institutions.  The  whole  range  of  re- 
cent history  scarcely  furnishes  a  parallel  now  standing  in 
full  tide  of  beneficent  success,  unless  it  be  the  manufact- 
ure of  ensilage,  or  Per-redavy  spanekil-her.  True  we 
have  had  high  expectations  concerning  other  modern  ideas, 
which  have  been  doomed  to  disappointment.  I  need  only 
mention  Stefensbat  Terry  and  the  Winanseeg  arsteemer, 
to  call  to  mind  national  calamities.  The  world  was  not 
prepared  for  advances  so  great.  Madam  Hau's  Bah-stun 
bank  promised  a  great  deal, —  more,  indeed,  than  any 
other  financial  enterprise  which  has  been  set  afloat;  but 
it  could  not  contend  against  the  envy  and  malignity  of 
those  who  had  ideas  of  their  own  to  promote.  Madam 
Hau's  gift-enterprise  was  crushed  out  in  the  most  en- 
lightened pah  of  Maui ;  and  Madam  Hau  herself  has  been 
followed  by  the  most  relentless  legal  persecution.  This, 
however,  only  shows  that  the  Kewahwenaw  method  has 
not  yet  thoroughly  taken  in  all  parts  of  our  country. 

Of  other  great  fruits  of  modern  civilization  still  in  the 
shell,  none  promise  more  than  the  Kiele  moat-her  and  the 
Deless  Epse  bridge  connecting  the  islands  of  Te  ika  a 
Maui  and  Te  wahi  Punamu.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
rapid  extension  of  the  Kewahwenaw  method,  which  is 
more  a  great  moral  conception  than  an  invention,  will 
save  the  Kiele  moat-her  and  the  bridge  from  that  neglect 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  285 

which  an  over-brainy  public  is  apt  to  visit  on  new  en- 
terprises which  do  not  prove  successful. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  define  the  Kewahwenaw  method 
too  suddenly.  I  shall  first  make  some  statements  con- 
cerning its  merits,  and  furnish  some  illustrations  of  its 
useful  application.  It  might  tend  to  raise  expectation 
too  high  to  say  it  is  a  scheme  for  superseding  the  ex- 
ti-avagance,  inconvenience  and  aristocratic  tendencies  of 
the  antiquated  idea  of  personal  competency  for  any  duty. 
While  this  is  true,  it  is  obvious  the  whole  import  of  the 
truth  has  not  yet  been  adequately  apprehended,  since  it 
is  plain  to  any  person  who  observes  closely  that  the  crowds 
who  press  for  places  demanding  responsibility  and  intelli- 
gence are  not  yet  altogether  of  the  least  responsible  and 
least  intelligent  class.  Still,  it  is  gratifying  to  perceive 
a  constant  improvement  in  this  respect. 

Let  us  take  a  particular  field  for  illustration;  I  refer 
to  field-geology.  Years  ago,  when  our  country  had  been 
but  recently  settled,  the  idea  sprang  up  that  the  public 
territory  might  be  carefully  examined  for  the  discovery 
of  valuable  mineral  gums.  Nu-Jerk,  happily,  was  one 
of  the  first  provinces  to  act  upon  this  suggestion;  but 
Nu-Jerk,  unhappily,  was  under  the  chieftainship  of  that 
distinguished  old  fogy,  Wilyum  Elmarsee,  who  thought 
he  could  do  no  better  than  to  commission  four  so-called 
scientific  gentlemen  (for  science  was  then  held  in  high 
esteem)  to  enter  upon  an  elaborate  plan  which  would 
require  a  decade  for  its  accomplishment.  The  province 
once  committed  to  such  extravagance,  it  had  to  be  sub- 
jected to  the  humiliation  of  seeing  successive  chiefs  lend 
themselves  to  its  indefinite  continuance.  It  is  some  satis- 
faction to  know,  however,  that  they  were  men  of  no  more 


286  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

worth  or  distinction  than  Wilyum  Aitchswird,  Si  Lusrite, 
Ham  mil  Tun-Fish,  Moray  Shoseemer,  and  the  like, —  peace 
to  their  ashes.  It  is  probable  the  people  of  Nu-Jerk  have 
been  oppressed  with  taxes  to  defray  the  expenses  of  this 
survey  to  an  amount  exceeding  a  fiftieth  of  a  mill  for 
every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  province  since  the 
survey  was  inaugurated.  This  may  seem  an  incredibly 
onerous  burden,  but  I  am  in  possession  of  certified  docu- 
ments to  bear  me  out  in  the  statement. 

By  the  Kewahvvenavv  method  these  things  are  done 
without  inflicting  the  least  financial  burdens  on  the  un- 
taxed  poor.  In  the  province  of  Kewahvvenaw  little  value 
is  placed,  save  in  a  surreptitious  way,  on  the  circuitous 
and  fanciful  processes  of  science,  so-called.  A  man  with 
a  forked  stick  is  better  than  a  geologist  with  a  hammer 
and  pocket  lens.  He  is  cheaper  ;  his  method  is  more 
direct;  he  walks  immediately  to  the  bed  of  gum  or  vein 
of  oil  and  puts  his  finger  on  the  spot,  and  that  is  the 
end  of  it  —  I  mean  the  end  of  your  anxiety.  Your  fortune 
is  now  made,  and  it  costs  but  seventy-five  cents.  Such  a 
man  can  walk  over  the  province  and  point  out  all  its 
locations,  while  the  man  with  a  hammer  would  be  crack- 
ing out  a  few  fossils.  He  has  another  advantage;  he 
wears  a  respectable  system  of  tattoo,  while  the  man  with 
a  hammer  may  be  dressed  in  a  suit  of  plain  black  skin. 
He  speaks  the  language  of  the  people  ;  he  finds  coal  in 
"veins,"  and  fixes  everything  in  "  ranges; "  the  man  with 
a  hammer  talks  about  chlorastrolites  and  polyglottophyl- 
lums,  and  idles  away  weeks  in  his  roundabout  methods, — 
and  all  this  time  under  pay! 

It  will  interest  posterity  to  learn  what  were  some  of 
his  old  methods,  now  happily  superseded  in  Kewahwenaw. 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  287 

The  information  ought  to  be  put  on  record,  as  it  is  likely 
to  become  an  unauthenticated  tradition.  Well,  in  the 
first  place,  the  old  gentleman  of  fuss  and  fossils  used  to 
entertain  a  number  of  superstitious  beliefs  concerning 
geological  structure.  He  talked  with  frightful  sonority 
and  ostentation  about  "  groups,"  and  "  systems,''  and 
"  dips,"  and  "  strikes,"  and  "  unconformabilities,"  and 
"  faults."  He  believed  that  the  different  minerals  were 
most  likely  to  be  found  in  particular  formations,  and  he 
set  himself  to  work  —  so  he  said  —  to  ascertain  what  were 
the  formations  underlying  the  province,  and  what  was 
their  order  of  superposition  ;  so  he  built  the  phrases. 
What  do  the  people  care  about  formations  which  lie  a 
hundred  or  a  thousand  feet  beneath  their  yam-patches  ? 
What  they  want  more  to  know  is  what  part  of  their 
farm  conceals  a  coal  mine  or  a  kauri-gum  mine.  What 
do  they  care  for  "  superposition,"  as  long  as  they  can  see 
for  themselves  that  a  fortune  in  oil  is  revealed  by  the 
film  on  the  creek,  or  by  the  rank  aroma  which  stimu- 
lates their  pituitary  membranes  and  their  cupidity?  But 
the  old-fashioned  man  with  a  hammer  in  his  hand  and  a 
note-book  in  his  pocket  must  proceed  to  make  out  a  cata- 
logue of  formations  in  due  order  of  "  superposition. " 
This,  he  told  us,  was  the  central  problem  to  be  resolved. 
How  did  he  go  to  work? 

I  will  tell  you.  He  pretended  there  was  a  necessity 
for  knowing  something  about  the  relative  elevation  of 
different  parts  of  the  province.  The  underlying  strata, 
he  said,  are  not  placed  horizontally  and  in  regular  suc- 
cession. They  have  been  tilted  up,  so  that  the  edge  of  a 
stratum  seen  at  the  surface  at  a  given  point  runs  along 
near  the  surface  for  a  considerable  distance,  and  this  he 


288  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

called  the  "  strike."  But,  from  the  outcropping  edge  the 
sheet  of  rock  descends  in  a  direction  nearly  at  right  an- 
gles to  the  strike,  and  disappears  beneath  the  loose  super- 
ficial materials  and  the  other  formations.  It  is  of  first 
importance,  he  pretended,  to  ascertain  in  what  directions 
the  rocks  "dip"  in  different  parts  of  the  province;  for  if 
a  formation  dips,  for  instance,  toward  the  west  from 
Oamaru,  then  it  passes  under  all  points  situated  west  of 
Oamaru,  and  does  not  underlie  points  to  the  east  of 
Oamaru.  This  is  something  of  no  earthly  utility,  but  I 
am  making  a  record  of  superstitions,  and  will  proceed. 
If  the  man  with  a  hammer  desired  to  know  the  direction 
of  the  dip  of  a  formation,  one  would  suppose  the  most 
economical  way  would  be  to  go  and  look  at  it.  But  he 
was  not  content  with  a  method  so  direct  and  so  cheap. 
He  pretended  that  the  dip  was  often  so  gentle  that  it 
could  not  be  detected  by  a  single  observation.  He  pre- 
tended that  it  varied  considerably  from  point  to  point, 
so  that  the  position  of  the  formation  at  widely  separated 
points  must  be  ascertained  in  order  to  know  the  general 
direction  and  average  amount  of  the  dip.  Well,  suppose 
all  this  was  necessary,  why  not  go  to  the  two  widely 
separated  points  and  see  what  difference  of  elevation  they 
have?  As  might  be  expected,  the  man  with  a  hammer 
had  new  objections  to  the  direct  and  economical  method. 
He  pretended  it  to  be  necessary  to  hunt  up  all  the  old 
road  and  canal  surveys  of  the  province,  and  transcribe 
their  records  of  elevations,  arrange  them  in  tables,  and 
lay  them  down  on  a  map  of  the  province.  This  was  a 
long  labor, —  the  man  with  a  hammer  all  the  time  under 
pay.  So  he  obtained  the  altitudes  of  all  the  principal 
points  in  the  province.  Now  he  argued  that  if  the  same 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  289 

formation  was  at  the  surface  at  two  points,  Wainui  and 
Porongahu,  twenty  miles  apart,  and  one  of  these  points, 
Wainui,  was  a  hundred  feet  higher  than  the  other,  then 
the  formation  dipped  one  hundred  feet  in  twenty  miles, 
or  five  feet  a  mile  in  the  direction  from  Wainui  to 
Porongahu.  If  by  any  means  lie  could  ascertain  that  the 
formation  occurred  at  some  point  near  Wainui,  but  at 
an  elevation  fifteen  feet  higher  or  lower  than  Wainui, 
then  the  dip  between  the  two  points  would  be  fifteen  feet 
more  or  less  than  a  hundred  feet.  So  he  undertook  to 
ascertain  what  he  called  the  "dip"  of  the  underlying 
formations  in  all  parts  of  the  province.  Having  come  to 
a  knowledge  of  the  dips,  he  was  able,  he  said,  to  calculate 
what  formations  underlay  each  locality.  For,  supposing 
Pipi-riki  and  Peri-riki  to  be  twenty  miles  apart,  and  Peri- 
riki  to  be  seventy  feet  higher  up  the  river  than  Pipi-riki; 
and  supposing  the  dip  from  Peri-riki  down  the  stream  to 
be  five  feet  per  mile,  then  the  formation  on  which  Peri- 
riki  stands  must  pass  under  Pipi-riki,  because  the  dip  is 
more  rapid  than  the  descent  of  the  stream  ;  but  if  the 
dip  is  but  two  feet  per  mile,  then  the  formation  on  which 
Peri-riki  stands  thins  out  and  disappears  before  reaching 
Pipi-riki,  and  there  would  be  no  propriety  in  sinking  a 
shaft  at  Pipi-riki  to  strike  the  formation  which  at  Peri- 
riki  may  bear  a  valuable  bed  of  kauri-gum.*  The  ex- 
travagance and  inutility  of  this  mode  of  operation  are  so 
apparent  that  I  shall  make  no  effort  to  expose  them. 

But  the  man  with  a  hammer  had  a  still  worse  crotchet 
in  his  head,  and  one  much  more  wasteful  of  the  people's 

*  These  explanations  are  said  to  have  been  graphically  illustrated  in  the 
margin  of  the  manuscript,  but  the  Governor  of  New  Zealand  did  not  transmit 
copies  of  the  illustrations  with  the  translation. 
18 


290  SPARKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

money.  Sometimes,  as  he  pretended,  it  was  impossible  to 
get  the  difference  of  level  of  two  points,  as,  for  instance, 
Ateamari  and  Opepe;  and  therefore  it  was  impossible  to 
determine  the  dip  of  the  rocks.  Or,  if  the  difference  of 
level  was  known,  the  rocks  in  the  two  places  were  differ- 
ent, and  it  was  necessary  to  know  which  held  the  highest 
stratigraphical  position.  Suppose  he  found  the  Ateamari 
rock  to  hold  a  position  known  by  observation  in  other 
places  to  be  fifty  feet  above  the  position  of  the  Opepe 
rock,  while  Ateamari  and  Opepe  occupy  the  same  topo- 
graphical elevation.  It  would  be  inferred  that  Opepe  is 
fifty  feet  lower,  geologically,  than  Ateamari.  That  is,  go- 
ing from  Ateamari  to  Opepe,  strata  lower  and  lower  in 
the  geological  series  come  to  the  surface.  This  means 
that  from  Opepe  to  Ateamari  the  rocks  dip  toward  Atea- 
mari to  the  amount  of  fifty  feet.  So  he  reasoned,  and  so 
he  wasted  his  time, —  all  the  while  spending  the  people's 
hard-earned  money.  But  how  to  know  that  the  Ateamari 
stratum  was  fifty  feet  higher  than  the  Opepe  stratum, — 
that  was  the  frivolous  problem  which  he  set  himself  to 
work  out  by  means  of  what  he  called  "  palaeontology." 
He  pretended  that  each  formation  contained  certain  so- 
called  fossil  remains  which  were  peculiar  to  it,  and  as 
soon  as  he  could  identify  any  fossil  remains  in  the  Atea- 
mari formation  he  would  know  what  stratum  it  is  ;  and 
having  determined  the  identity  of  the  Opepe  stratum  in 
a  similar  way,  he  was  in  possession  of  a  knowledge  of  the 
interval  between  them.  Posterity  will  think  all  this  very 
occult  and  extremely  far-fetched.  What  the  man  who 
owns  a  kumara  plantation  desires  to  know  is  the  depth 
to  which  he  must  dig  to  get  soap  or  oil ;  and  all  the 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  291 

money  spent  in  collecting  and  identifying  fossils  is  en- 
tirely wasted, —  and  this  the  dear  people's  money. 

I  have  not  reached  the  end  of  this  system  of  scientific 
spoliation.  Under  such  pretexts  the  man  with  a  hammer 
went  all  over  the  province  with  his  hammer  in  one  hand 
and  a  leather  bag  in  the  other.  He  strolled  along  the 
courses  of  the  rivers  and  smaller  streams,  gazing  at  the 
blank  rocks,  making  diagrams  of  the  cliffs,  describing  the 
strata,  collecting,  assorting  and  labeling  the  fossils,  so  as 
to  know  afterward  what  locality  and  stratum  had  yielded 
each  one.  He  loitered  about  all  the  stone-quarries,  both- 
ering the  workmen  with  idle  questions;  he  knocked  stone 
walls  to  pieces;  he  sauntered  across  the  fields;  he  boated 
along  the  shores  of  the  lakes;  he  clambered  over  the  cliffs 
of  the  mountains,  —  and  everywhere,  with  hammer  and 
bag,  he  gathered  fossils  and  samples  of  the  rocks.  It  was 
a  vain  and  frivolous  expenditure  of  the  people's  money. 
Any  inanga-catcher  could  have  told  him  where  all  the 
cliffs  were  along  the  river  or  lake  shore;  and  could  have 
told  him  there  was  not  an  ounce  of  coal  or  a  pint  of  oil 
in  the  whole  valley  of  the  Waitangi ;  and  any  hapuku- 
spearer  could  have  given  similar  information  about  the 
whole  west  coast  of  Otago. 

What  did  he  proceed  to  do  with  these  collections?  He 
took  them  home,  and  occupied  himself  through  the  win- 
ter in  handling  them  over,  placing  them  here  and  there, 
and  then  placing  them  back  again,  as  a  child  forever  re- 
arranges its  playthings.  He  sawed  them  into  thin  slices 
and  examined  them  with  microscopes  ;  he  turned  them 
over  and  over,  he  studied  every  point,  and  made  every 
imaginable  comparison  ;  he  drew  innumerable  pictures, 
and  wrote  books  full  of  descriptions,  and  had  the  audacity 


292  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

to  present  them  to  Ihe  provincial  authorities  for  publica- 
tion at  the  expense  of  the  dear  people.  That  was  the 
old  established  method.  In  Nu-Jerk  the  authorities  have 
published  such  books  in  sufficient  quantity  to  build  a 
causeway  across  the  straits  from  Otea  to  Moe-Hao.  But 
did  the  authorities  of  Kewahwenaw  acquiesce  in  such  ex- 
travagance? Never.  They  learned  a  precious  lesson  at 
Nu-Jerk's  expense.  The  plethoric  treasury-sucker  had 
almost  succeeded  in  attaching  himself  to  the  public  coffer.  , 
All  disinterested  patriots  were  watching  for  the  oppor- 
tunity to  raise  the  cry  of  economy  in  behalf  of  the  hard- 
worked  and  untaxed  but  numerous  and  heavy-voting  yeo- 
manry. It  was  a  crisis  in  the  history  of  Kewahwenaw. 
All  eyes  were  rolling  wildly  for  the  martyr  who  should 
spring  into  the  breach  and  rescue  the  money-box.  Now 
rose  majestically  and  patriotically  from  his  seat  the  great 
Rangatira*  Sammiheel.  He  stood  up  bravely  and  boldly 
in  his  place,  in  the  grand  council  of  the  province,  and 
most  virtuously  exposed  and  denounced  the  impending 
outrage.  "  I  have  traveled,"  he  said,  "  by  wheelbarrow 
express  all  the  way  from  the  mountains  of  Kewahwenaw 
to  shake  my  greenstone  tommyhawk  in  the  face  of  this 
imbecile  and  fraud,  and  drive  him  to  the  solitudes  of 
Rakiura.  We  have  no  use  for  him  in  Te  wahi  Punamu. 
He  wants  us  to  print  seven  or  eight  costly  volumes  of 
detestable  trash  about  all  creation,  and  ornamented  with 
pictures  and  charts.  It  would  bankrupt  the  province. 
It  would  cost  a  cent  for  every  ten  persons  in  Kewahwe- 
naw. All  we  want  is  a  simple  volume  giving  a  cata- 
logue of  yam-patches,  kiwi-roosts  and  gum-beds, —  a  cheap, 

*This  was  explained  by  the  old  Maori  as  the  title  of  one  of  the  inferior 
chiefs,— perhaps  equivalent  to  "Sir"  or  "Supe." 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  293 

practical  manual,  in  which  every  tutua  and  ware  can  find 
his  name  in  dictionary  order.  Away  with  this  gigantic, 
pedantic,  romantic  and  satanic  dun-seadd."  Now,  Ranga- 
tira  Sammiheel  was  a  nobleman  of  purest  blood.  He  had 
himself  carried  the  forked  witch-hazel  stick.  His  patriot- 
ism was  tried  and  proven  ;  no  selfish  motive  ever  found 
place  in  his  expansive  vest,  and  the  breath  of  suspicion 
had  never  reached  him.  To  this  day  his  reputation  re- 
mains as  spotless  as  the  sky  of  Maui.  His  heroic  effort 
on  this  occasion  ripped  open  the  dark  cloud  which  hung 
over  the  council  and  over  Kewahwenaw,  and  by  the  gleam 
of  light  which  fell  through  the  rent  could  be  seen  Ran- 
gatira  Harrihowlt  rising  like  Tangaroa  from  the  sea. 
Rangatira  Harrihowlt  also  took  his  reputation  in  his 
hands  and  swung  it  over  the  heads  of  his  fellow  council- 
men.  "  The  day  has  dawned,"  he  exclaimed,  "  when  this 
scientific  humbuggery  must  be  stamped  into  flindereens. 
I  have  looked  over  the  documents  submitted  by  this 
strolling  and  conceited  pedant  and  find  nothing  useful  to 
our  people.  Here  are  some  hundreds  of  rolls  on  the 
topography  of  the  province, —  what  has  that  to  do  with 
the  development  of  our  soap-mines?*  It  is  all  bosh. 
Here  is  an  equal  number  of  rolls  on  our  paradisiacal 
climate,  which  amounts  to  an  invitation  to  all  the  hordes 
of  Tonga,  Viti  and  Papua  to  sail  in  on  us  and  hold  the 
fort.  We  don't  want  an  immigration.  We  have  sent  an 
agent  to  Hawaiki  to  keep  immigrants  away.  We  have 
had  to  kill  off  thousands  already  in  Maui,  faster  than  we 
could  eat  them.  This  matter  is  all  bosh.  There  are  other 
rolls  of  infertile  and  infelicitous  flummagery  among  these 

*  The  learned  councilman  evidently  alluded  to  soapstone  quarries,  which 
have  been  utilized  to  a  great  extent  in  increasing  our  supplies  of  butter,  sugar 
and  flour. 


294  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

documents  which  I  have  not  had  the  patience  to  bore 
through.  They  possess  no  practical  use  for  our  people. 
There  is  nothing  here  which  could  stand  alone  if  wrapped 
in  typography  and  put  on  its  feet.  It  is  all  bosh." 

These  were  brave  and  ringing  words.  Such  words  had 
never  before  been  uttered  in  Kewahwenaw.  Gratitude 
soon  raised  their  author  to  the  rank  of  ariki.  This  was 
the  natal  day  of  the  Kewahwenaw  method.  Rangatira 
Saramiheel  was  its  father  and  mother;  Rangatira  Harri- 
howlt  was  its  nurse.  As  soon  as  the  event  was  accom- 
plished, Masters  Hairybald  and  Witterbacks,  who  had 
been  sitting  in  an  adjoining  apartment,  opened  the  door 
sufficiently  wide  to  protrude  their  heads,  and  with  hands 
covering  the  exposed  angles  of  their  mouths,  called  in  a 
loud  whisper  to  Sammiheel,  "  Magnificently  done,  Ranga- 
tira Sammiheel!  "  Now  the  power  and  effectiveness  of 
Rangatira  Sammiheers  eloquence  is  manifest  from  the 
fact  that  Masters  Hairybald  and  Witterbacks  had  always 
aided  and  encouraged  the  man  with  a  hammer,  and, 
before  they  discovered  his  trick,  had  been  strongly  com- 
mitted to  the  methods  which  he  had  pursued;  but  when 
Rangatira  Sammiheel  blew  his  blast,  and  turned  the  tide, 
they  perceived  themselves  likely  to  be  swamped,  and  called 
out  wildly  in  unison,  "  Lord  Sammiheel,  we  want  to  get 
into  your  boat! " 

But  the  prescriptive  power  of  science  was  not  yet 
completely  destroyed  in  Maui.  Two  chapters  of  later 
history  show  that  the  scientific  disease  still  lurks  in  the 
blood  of  our  tutua.  The  man  with  a  hammer  retained 
an  influence  over  the  ariki  *  of  Hauraki.  He  persuaded 
the  ariki  to  furnish  his  fossils  a  home.  The  ariki  built 
*  This  is  explained  as  meaning  the  higher  class  of  chiefs. 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  295 

cases  and  cabinets  for  him,  made  of  totara  wood,  and 
adorned  with  ti.  The  Haui'akians  at  length  were  per- 
suaded that  the  arrangement  of  his  specimens  symbolized 
something  in  the  order  of  events  in  times  long  past. 
They  imagined  the  history  of  the  past  became  reproduced, 
and  that  they  obtained  glimpses  of  the  order  and  method 
of  the  world.  They  took  in  the  scientific  fanaticism  so 
deeply  that  they  even  claimed  there  was  something  cul- 
tural in  the  contemplation  of  a  stack  of  old  bones.  Of 
old  bones  collected  at  the  people's  expense  he  had  an 
attic  full.  We  all  know  how,  when  our  ancestors  first 
came  to  Maui  from  Hawaiki,  the  mountainous  parts  of 
our  provinces  were  inhabited  by  gigantic  birds,  whose 
flesh  served  for  subsistence  during  many  generations.  One 
of  these  species  was  of  enormous  magnitude,  and  when 
one  tall  man  stood  on  the  head  of  another,  his  eye  was 
barely  on  a  level  with  the  moa's  eye.  The  eggs  of  the 
bird  were  as  large  as  the  head  of  Rangatira  Sammiheel. 
Unfortunately  the  big  birds  were  hunted  out  of  existence, 
and  their  bones  now  lie  scattered  from  one  end  of  Maui 
to  the  other.  Well,  the  man  with  a  hammer  gathered 
forty  tons  of  the  bones  of  the  moa,  and  got  permission  of 
the  authorities  of  Hauraki  to  build  a  complete  skeleton 
in  the  public  place;  and  there  it  stood  for  six  months  — 
an  old,  black  skeleton  of  a  dead  animal.  This  was  more 
than  our  tutua  could  bear.  The  thing  was  frightful;  it 
terrified  the  children  and  the  women.  It  was  aggravating; 
it  recalled  pictures  of  savory  moa  steaks,  and  excited  appe- 
tites which  the  dry  bones  only  mocked.  Our  prisoners 
of  war  did  not  -suffice  to  glut  the  anthropophagous  long- 
ings of  our  people.  Lovers  began  to  tell  their  sweethearts 
they  felt  as  "  if  they  could  eat  them  up."  The  thing,  too, 


296  SPAKKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

was  brown;  its  color  was  human.  It  was  an  insult  as 
well  as  an  aggravation  and  a  terror.  At  length  the  keeper 
of  the  public  place  yielded  to  the  dictates  of  his  better 
sense  and  the  clamor  of  the  people,  and  had  the  thing 
whitewashed.  But  though  the  color  was  much  improved, 
it  was  only  a  hateful,  bloodless  skeleton.  It  cost  money 
even  to  keep  it.  So  he  finally  knocked  it  to  pieces  and 
threw  it  on  the  rubbish  heap  outside  of  the  palisades. 

Even  in  Kewahwenaw  the  influence  of  science  still 
steadily  exerts  itself.  There  was  another  man  with  a 
hammer  who  came  some  time  before  from  Hawaiki,  the 
fatherland.  Now  the  Maories  always  entertained  a  re- 
gard for  the  fatherland,  which  consisted  of  a  mixture  of 
reverence  and  affection.  They  considered  everything  from 
the  fatherland  superior  to  the  productions  of  Maui;  and 
especially  was  a  scientific  man  from  Tonga  the  object  of 
flatteries  and  attentions.  The  Tongesan  of  whom  I  speak 
was  a  wise  man.  He  never  spoke  of  his  plans.  He  seemed 
to  be  not  only  a  fatherlander,  but  also  one  of  the  strictest 
of  the  Maories.  He  was  tattooed  Maori  fashion;  this 
pleased  their  fancy.  He,  too,  began  to  go  about  with  a 
hammer,  and  Master  Witterbacks  was  mightily  pleased 
with  him.  He  opened  a  hole  in  the  top  of  Master  Witter- 
back's  head,  and  pi*ojected  it  full  of  science.  He  then 
closed  the  hole  with  a  plug  of  puriri-wood.  The  stuff 
worked  like  vaccine  matter;  and  Master  Witterbacks  began 
to  pass  himself  for  a  man  of  science  —  head  full  of  knowl- 
edge; heart  large  enough  to  undertake  any  duty  the  prov- 
ince might  impose  on  him.  Master  Witterbacks  kept  his 
eye  on  the  Tongesan.  He  told  him  where  to  go  and 
what  to  do.  The  Tongesan  was  gentle  as  a  Kiwi;  but 
he  was  cunning  as  a  Kou-kou.  He  had  all  the  time  a 


A    REMARKABLE    MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  297 

sly  purpose  which  Master  Witterbacks  did  not  understand. 
He  was  getting  up  a  picture-book — this  pampered  Ton- 
gesan  plotter  against  our  Maori  institutions.  And  when 
the  picture-book  was  ready  he  said  to  Master  Witterbacks, 
"  Master  Witterbacks,  now  let  us  print  this  book,  and 
never  say  a  word  to  Rangatira  Sammiheel  about  it."  So 
the  book  was  printed,  and  Master  Witterbacks'  name  was 
set  down  in  the  book  as  high  scientific  engine-driver. 
And  it  was  paid  for  out  of  the  people's  money;  and  the 
people  never  uttered  a  howl  to  this  day,  for  they  never 
knew  anything  about  it;  and  Rangatira  Sammiheel  is  in 
the  mountains,  and  thinks  science  is  killed  as  dead  as  a 
moa. 

This  is  a  true  history  of  the  origin  of  the  Kewahwe- 
iiaw  method,  and  of  its  application  to  geological  surveys 
in  Kewahwenaw.  But  it  is  by  no  means  local  in  its  ap- 
plications. Men  with  hammers  have  been  among  the  rocks 
in  other  provinces.  The  application  of  the  Kewahwenaw 
method  to  them  varies  with  the  circumstances,  and  with 
the  disposition  of  the  arikis,  rangatiras,  masters  and  coun- 
cilmen  in  the  different  provinces.  In  the  province  of  Ma- 
koketa  they  permitted  a  man  with  a  hammer,  who  came 
from  Nu-Jerk,  to  amuse  himself  a  couple  of  years  in 
collecting  stones  and  getting  up  a  picture-book;  and  the 
prototype  of  Sammiheel  arose  in  council  and  told  him  to 
go  home;  they  would  not  be  nu-jerked;  they  would  not 
pay  the  costs  of  his  vagrant  excui'sioning.  So  he  went 
home  howling,  and  howled  for  six  years.  Some  time 
afterward  another  man  with  a  hammer  arose  from  among 
their  own  citizens.  They  told  him  they  had  use  for  him. 
They  had  a  quantity  of  quarry  stones  to  crack.  They 
had  a  council-house  to  build,  and  would  like  to  employ 


298  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST^   HAMMER. 

him  in  selecting  and  getting  out  the  stone.  They  wanted 
him  also  to  work  in  their  gypsum  quarries,  and  hunt 
up  coal  deposits.  They  would  not  publish  any  picture- 
books,  but  they  would  let  him  write  letters  to  the  news- 
papers; and  thus  he  could  ease  his  mind  and  relieve  the 
editors,  and  all  the  expense  of  printing  would  be  paid  by 
the  subscribers  to  the  newspapers.  As  long  as  the  peo- 
ple's burdens  cannot  be  charged  on  the  councilmen,  in 
the  political  account,  they  are  of  no  political  value  or 
importance.  He  was  a  good-natured  man;  but  that  was 
not  the  reason  why  he  complied  with  their  conditions. 
He  actually  hoped  the  Makoketans  might,  within  a  couple 
of  years,  be  led  to  discern  their  own  interest  —  their 
intellectual  and  educational  interest  —  in  having  the  his- 
tory of  past  events  in  their  province  clearly  portrayed 
to  the  intelligence  of  all.  He  hoped  that  he  might  be 
permitted  at  least  to  pursue  a  scientific  method  for  de- 
termining the  complete  succession  of  their  strata,  and  the 
economical  products  which  they  contain.  But  the  Mako- 
ketans were  too  shrewd  for  him.  They  were  ready  for 
the  economical  products,  but  what  did  they  want  of  "  suc- 
cession"? So  the  man  with  a  hammer  walked  toward 
sunrise,  and  never  stopped  till  he  had  gone  as  far  as 
possible  without  leaving  the  shores  of  Maui. 

The  province  of  Mok  chehunk  devised  a  much  more 
ingenious  and  paying  expedient.  That  province  had  long 
been  infested  with  hammer-men,  great  and  small.  The 
people  of  the  province  had  long  been  celebrated  for  their 
business  sagacity.  In  the  olden  time  they  permitted  a 
man  with  a  big  hammer  to  go  about  and  explore  the 
situation  of  their  gum-beds.  They  induced  him  to  com- 
municate the  "  practical "  results  of  his  observations,  flat- 


A    REMARKABLE   MAORI    MANUSCRIPT.  299 

tering  him  with  the  promise  to  print  a  handsome  pict- 
ure-book for  him,  in  which  he  could  attempt  to  explain 
by  what  circuitous  and  wonderful  processes  he  had  at- 
tained those  results,  and  how  he  had  overturned  the 
mountain  range  of  Te  wahi  Punamu.  But  when  his  book 
was  ready  they  justly  refused  to  touch  it  They  ban- 
ished him  to  a  small  island  in  the  North  Atlantic,  where 
the  villagers,  who  were  all  a  body  of  refugees,  took  pity 
on  the  impostor,  and  got  out  his  book  in  such  cheap  style 
as  they  could  aiford.  He  lived  many  years  among  them, 
—  a  good  riddance  to  Mok-che-hunk.  But  the  Mok-che- 
hunkites,  on  the  later  occasion  of  which  I  speak,  surpassed 
themselves.  They  turned  the  opportunity  to  publish,  to 
their  own  advantage,  in  another  way.  There  are  among 
them  extensive  sellers  of  paper-rags  and  waste  paper. 
These  parties  induced  the  grand  council  to  print  the 
books  of  the  hammer-men.  But  it  was  not  their  purpose 
to  allow  these  books  to  get  into  the  hands  of  the  ham- 
mer-men of  other  provinces.  They  kept  them  all  in 
Mok-chehunk.  They  divided  them  up  among  the  council- 
men,  rangatiras  and  arikis  themselves,  and  the  council- 
men,  rangatiras  and  arikis  transferred  them  to  the  old- 
rag-men,  and  the  old-rag-men  sold  them,  and  thus  turned 
an  honest  penny;  and  there  was  no  pandering  to  the 
vanity  and  ambition  of  the  hammer  theorists;  and  the 
old-rag-men  swore  that  the  same  councilmen,  rangatiras 
and  arikis  should  always  rule  over  the  province,  and  keep 
on  publishing  picture-books  for  the  hammer-men,  as  long 
as  the  Waitangi  should  flow  into  the  sea.  So  the  Kewah- 
wenaw  method,  varying  its  application  with  the  circum- 
stances, has  spread  through  the  remotest  provinces  of  Maui. 
I  have  given  so  full  a  description  of  the  application 


300  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

of  the  Kewahwenaw  method  to  the  suppression  of  men 
with  hammers,  that  it  will  be  readily  undei-stood  how 
great  is  its  utility  in  extinguishing  brainy  pretenders  in 
other  fields  of  aspiration.  There  are  always  persons  who 
think  themselves  qualified  for  positions  of  responsibility, 
but  who  are  totally  deficient  in  that  tact,  alertness,  cun- 
ning, bluff  and  brass  which  are  the  true  qualifications 
for  getting  into  position.  Brainy  people,  moreover,  have 
the  vanity  to  think  their  services  more  valuable  than  those 
of  bullet-heads  and  plumbiputs.  Their  pay-day  has  ar- 
rived. We  have  banished  them  from  many  judicial  po- 
sitions, and  put  men  in  their  places  who  are  content 
without  robbing  the  people  with  extravagant  salaries. 
We  have  generally  secured  cheap  ferule-men  and  women 
to  train  our  youth  in  the  curricula;  and  even  the  high 
trainers  in  the  grand  currus,  who  style  themselves  proffy- 
sawers,  are  given  traveling-papers  in  Kewahwenaw  when- 
ever their  aspirations  rise  above  fair  Kewahwenaw  mod- 
eration. We  are  aiming  to  crush  out  the  whole  breed 
of  so-styled  "  experts."  In  a  country  like  Maui  all  men 
are  truly  equal;  and  the  person  who  sets  himself  up  as 
superior  to  his  fellow-men  in  any  respect  is  immediately 
taken  down  and  packed  away  in  a  row  with  his  fellow- 
citizens,  or  banished  from  the  country.  There  is  nothing 
more  beautiful  than  a  civil  society  in  which  all  men 
possess  exactly  equal  power  and  privileges,  and  are  recog- 
nized as  equally  qualified  for  all  duties,  and  all,  conse- 
quently, receive  the  same  compensation  for  services, —  a 
community  which  is  not  preyed  upon  by  an  over-cere- 
brated aristocracy,  and  in  which  the  ancient  superstition 
of  special  competency  for  any  duty  is  a  by-word  and  a 
joke. 


THE  GENEALOGY  OF  SHIPS. 


A  FEW  years  ago,  on  the  breaking  up  of  a  meeting 
of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement 
of  Science,  we  found  ourselves,  by  the  courtesy  of  the 
Chicago  and  Northwestern  Railroad,*  in  possession  of  free 
passes  to  Omaha.  Such  a  send-off  for  a  body  of  low- 
salaried  scientists  was  truly  a  god-send;  and  all  who  were 
truly  wise  used  their  passes.  I  well  remember  the  eager- 
ness with  which  my  friend,  Professor  0.  C.  Marsh,  packed 

*The  government  of  this  road  has  habitually  manifested  a  generous  appre- 
ciation of  the  needs, —  not  to  gay  the  claims, —  of  scientific  enterprise.  On  this 
occasion  (1868)  members  of  the  Association  had  their  choice  of  three  extensive 
trips,— to  Rock  Island,  to  Omaha,  and  to  Lake  Superior.  Natural  History  in  all 
its  branches  must  be  prosecuted  by  observation.  This  requires,  many  times, 
extensive  journeys  on  the  part  of  the  naturalist.  There  is  a  double  reason  why  he 
should  not  be  taxed  to  the  serious  extent  of  bearing  all  the  expenses  of  such  sur- 
veys. 1.  He  is  not  in  pursuit  of  a  selfish  end ;  he  makes  no  material  gains ;  all  the 
results  go  into  possession  of  the  world ;  he  expends  his  own  time  and  employs 
the  results  of  years  of  preparation  without  the  least  material  compensation. 
2.  He  is  generally  a  low-  salaried  man ;  our  colleges  and  universities  pay  less 
than  business-houses  to  a  good  book-keeper  or  head-clerk;  he  is  engaged  in  no 
profitable  business;  he  can  take  advantage  of  no  speculations;  all  his  energies 
are  withdrawn  from  money-making;  his  country  taxes  him  on  the  books  he  im- 
ports for  the  extension  of  his  knowledge;  his  generally  scant  resources  must 
fatally  restrict  the  field  of  his  observations,  and  cause  the  world  to  feel  the  con- 
sequent loss,  unless  the  intelligent  appreciation  of  railroad  superintendents  shall 
prompt  them  to  grant  traveling  favors,  which  cost  their  roads  comparatively  lit- 
tle. Since  I  have  mentioned  one  generous  corporation.  1  ought  to  say  that  most 
of  our  roads  have  granted  important  reductions  in  fare  to  members  attending 
scientific  meetings;  and,  in  many  instances,  extensive  excursions  have  been 
freely  offered,  which  have  proved  of  incalculable  benefit,  to  the  interests  of 
science.  Some  of  the  most  noteworthy  excursions  offered  the  American  Asso- 
ciation have  been  from  the  meetings  at  Chicago.  Indianapolis,  St.  Louis  and 
Nashville.  The  authorities  would  be  gratified,  I  am  sure,  to  know  what  imme- 
diate and  what  indirect  results  have  proceeded  from  these  opportunities. 
301 


302  SPAKKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGISTS    HAMMER. 

his  traveling-bag  for  a  trip  to  the  Missouri  river,  and  the 
urgency  with  which  he  pressed  me  to  join  the  excursion. 
There  was  an  ulterior  purpose  lurking  beneath  his  drab- 
colored  hat  which  did  not  animate  the  others  of  the  small 
company,  who  were  intending  simply  to  ride  to  Omaha 
and  back.  Perhaps  this  was  one  of  those  critical  junc- 
tures in  human  life  where  to  choose  "  leads  on  to  fortune," 
and  to  refuse  leads, —  well,  nowhere  in  particular.  The 
fact  is,  Professor  Marsh  chose  to  go,  and  the  present  writer 
refused  to  go.  The  results  illuminate  the  aphorism. 

Not  long  after  this  the  American  Journal  of  Science* 
contained  an  announcement  of  the  discovery,  by  Professor 
Marsh,  of  the  remains  of  a  diminutive  extinct  equine  en- 
tirely new  to  science.  Beyond  Omaha,  Professor  Marsh 
had  proceeded  over  the  Union  Pacific  railroad  as  far  as 
Antelope  Station,  where  the  debris  thrown  out  of  a  well 
contained  the  relics  of  this  remote  predecessor  of  the 
"  prancing  steed."  It  was  at  Antelope  Station,  in  Ne- 
braska, four  hundred  and  fifty-one  miles  west  of  Omaha, 
that  his  destiny  was  revealed  to  him.  From  this  happy 
stroke  of  good  luck  he  had  the  tact  and  sagacity  and  in- 
dustry to  win  the  undivided  affections  of  the  goddess  so 
generally  reputed  "fickle";  and  a  few  years  later  the 
metropolitan  dailies  were  enriched  with  voluminous  ac- 
counts of  his  extensive  and  important  discoveries;  and  all 
the  world  had  heard  that  the  ancestral  horse  had  arisen 
in  America,  and  that  an  American  scientist  had  traced 
the  pedigree  of  Hambletonian  back  to  Oi'oliippus  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  Professor  Huxley  had  before  this  in- 

*  Amer.  Jour.  Sd.,  II,  xlvi,  374,  Nov.  1868.  The  discovery  announced  was 
Eqiius  parvulus  from  the  "later  Tertiary  of  Nebraska."  This  was  afterward 
thought  to  be  generically  distinct  from  Eqiius,  and  was  named  Protohippus  par- 
vulus Mh.  (Amer.  Jour.  ScL,  III,  vii,  251,  March  1874). 


THE   GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  303 

terested  himself  sufficiently  in  horse-lore  to  fit  together 
some  fragments  of  equine  genealogy,  and  make  an  exhi- 
bition of  them  before  the  Geological  Society  of  London.* 
I  believe  that  he  and  Albert  Gaudry  and  Paul  Gervais 
had  nearly  convinced  the  geological  savans  of  Europe  that 
their  continent  was  the  native  land  of  the  domestic  horse, 
and  the  whole  line  of  his  ancestry  was  European  through 
and  through.  But  it  is  certain  that  Professor  Marsh  came 
now  to  be  regarded  as  fully  demonstrating  that  the  role 
which  the  equine  played  in  Europe  was  merely  by-play, 
and  that  America  was  both  his  primitive  home  and  the 
chief  scene  of  the  exploits  of  the  whole  line  of  equidse. 
True  it  was  that  from  time  to  time  the  existing  repre- 
sentatives of  the  equine  lineage  had  wandered  off  to  the 
European  extremity  of  the  North  Atlantic  continent,!  and 
left  their  bones  to  stimulate  the  inquiries  of  "Old  World" 
geologists.  True  it  was  that  the  domestic  horse  had  been 
known  through  Europe  and  Asia  during  nearly  the  whole 
stretch  of  human  history,  while  he  was  wholly  unknown 
in  America  at  the  epoch  of  Columbus.  But  it  appeared 
also  true  that  the  real  domestic  horse  had  lived  in  Amer- 
ica and  become  extinct  here.  And  it  was  apparent  that 
representatives  of  the  horse  family  had  dwelt  here  in 
times  much  more  remote  than  the  epoch  of  the  oldest 
known  horses  of  Europe,  and  that  the  family  had  been 
represented  by  a  much  greater  diversity  of  specific  forms. 
It  looked,  in  fact,  as  if  America  had  been  the  original 
home  of  the  horse  family,  and  the  domestic  species  had 
disappeared  before  historic  times,  simply  because  it  had 
already  been  so  long  a  familiar  and  characteristic  Ameri- 
can form. 

*T.  H.  Huxley,  Critiques  and  Addresset,  181-217,  Anniversary  Address,  1870. 
tSee  chapters  iii  and  iv,  especially  the  latter. 


304  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

This,  I  say,  was  the  conviction  which  became  wide- 
spread among  palaeontologists  in  consequence  of  the  chain 
of  discoveries  announced  by  Professor  Marsh,  from  which 
it  appeared  that  at  least  seven  generic  modifications  of 
the  horse-type  had  lived  successively  upon  our  continent.* 

The  very  fact  of  the  reality  of  so  gently  graduated  a 
succession  was  deemed  by  Professor  Marsh  adequate  ground 
for  assuming  that  all  these  horse-types  belonged  to  one 
line  of  descent,  with  some  lateral  ramifications.t  To  me, 
while  admitting  the  high  probability  that  the  genealogical 
relationship  was  a  fact,  it  seemed  that  the  simple  circum- 

*These  were:  1.  Orohippus,  of  the  Middle  Eocene;  size  of  fox,  and  with 
four  toes  before  and  three  behind;  2.  Epihipitus  (a  later  discovery,  however), 
from  the  Later  Eocene,  resembling  Orohippns  generally,  but  differing  in  the 
teeth;  3.  Mesohippus,  from  the  Oldest  Miocene;  size  of  sheep,  having  three  toes 
before  and  three  behind,  and  with  large  "  splint ''  bones  before;  4.  Miohippus, 
from  the  Late  Miocene;  size  of  sheep,  with  three  toes  and  small  splints  before, 
and  three  unequal  toes  behind,  the  lateral  being  diminished;  5.  Protohippus, 
from  the  Early  Pliocene;  size  of  ass.  having  the  lateral  toes  in  each  foot  reduced 
to  dangling  hooflets;  6.  Pliohippus,  of  Middle  Pliocene;  size  of  small  horse,  and 
having  single  toes  with  large  lateral  splints;  7.  Equus,  the  genus  of  the  domestic 
horse,  known  in  America  (Eqmts  excelsus^  at  least)  as  early  as  the  Later  Pliocene, 
and  in  Europe  (Equus  fossilis,  probably  not  distinct  from  the  domestic  species) 
in  the  Cavern  Epoch  of  the  Quaternary.  In  Equus  the  functional  toes  are  re- 
duced to  the  middle  digit  on  each  foot,  but  the  rudiments  of  the  two  contiguous 
ones  still  remain  as  "  splints."  At  a  later  date  (1876)  Professor  Marsh  discovered 
a  still  older  equine,  Eohippus,  from  the  Oldest  Eocene;  size  of  a  fox,  with  four 
functional  toes  before  and  three  behind,  like  Orohippus,  but  with  rudiments  of  a 
fourth  toe  behind,  and  hence,  it  is  inferred,  the  rudiments  of  a  fifth  toe  in  front. 
The  hoofs  were  mere  thick,  broad  and  blunt  claws.  The  Anchippus  and  Euro- 
pean Hipparion  (Hippotherium  in  America)  were  closely  related  to  Protohippus, 
while  Merychippus  was  probably  identical.  Anchippus,  fftpparion  and  Stylonus 
constituted  a  collateral  series  diverging  from  the  equine  stem.  Anchitherium, 
from  the  older  Miocene,  and  the  oldest  equine  known  in  Europe,  is  similar  to  our 
M'whippus,  but  a  little  less  specialized.  It,  or  its  immediate  predecessor,  proba- 
bly carried  this  type  from  America  in  early  Miocene  times,  after  equines  had 
been  flourishing  in  the  "  New  "  World  for  a  whole  geological  period. 

t  The  same  weight  was  afterward  given  to  this  class  of  evidence  in  Marsh's 
address  as  Vice-President  of  the  American  Association,  at  the  Nashville  meeting, 
in  1877.  It  may  also  be  here  stated  that  Professor  Huxley  had  similarly  assumed 
that  this  single  line  of  evidence  closed  the  door  to  all  future  argument  or  dubita- 
tion.  This  was  in  his  New  York  lectures,  in  1876,  of  which  I  have  something 
further  to  say  in  another  chapter. 


THE    GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  305 

stances  of  graduation  and  consecutiveness  were  not  com- 
plete proof  of  the  proposition;  and  to  illustrate  the  fallacy 
of  that  mode  of  reasoning  I  sent  the  following  jeu  $  esprit 
to  the  journal  which  had  been  enterprising  enough  to 
keep  the  popular  reader  posted  in  the  progress  of  Pro- 
fessor Marsh's  discoveries:  — 

The  intelligent  public  is  placed  under  great  obligations 
to  the  Tribune  for  early  and  extended  accounts  of  the 
progress  of  American  science.  I  have  been  extremely 
interested  in  the  bulletins  of  Professor  Marsh's  explora- 
tions in  the  far  West.  The  Tribune's  re-presentation  (in 
the  number  for  May  4)  of  the  subject  of  extinct  equine 
quadrupeds  on  the  American  continent  is  entertaining 
and  instructive,  and  made  intelligible  by  the  reproduc- 
tion of  the  striking  cuts  showing  the  progressive  historical 
changes  in  the  foot  of  the  equine  animal.  $  These,  and 
other  similar  facts,  are  often  cited  as  evidence  of  the 
genealogical  descent  of  the  domestic  horse.  The  writer 
of  the  article  of  May  4  seems  to  view  them  as  evidences 
that  may  sustain  Mr.  Darwin's  theory,  as  he  suggests 
certain  physical  conditions  which  may  have  given  few- 
toed  horses  an  advantage  over  many-toed  horses. 

Now  nobody  can  be  insensible  for  a  moment  to  the 
beautiful  exemplification  of  fundamental  plan  which  we 
discover  in  these  forms;  no  one  can  deny  that  the  series 
constitutes  an  evolution;  but  some  may  question  whether 
Oroliippus,  Miohippus,  Hipparion  and  Equiis  stand  in  genea- 
logical relationship  to  each  other.  To  clear  up  all  doubt  on 
this  question,  and  establish  Darwinism  on  a  scientific  basis, 

*  An  excellent  set  of  illustrations  may  be  consulted  by  the  reader  in  the 
Popular  Scitnce  Monthly,  Iv,  295,  Jan.  1877.  These  have  been  reproduced  in  the 
third  edition  of  Dana's  Manual  of  Geology,  plate  z. 


306  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

I  desire  to  direct  the  attention  of  readers  of  the  Tribune 
to  another  set  of  facts  with  which  they  are  all  familiar. 
I  suppose  the  first  notion  of  a  vehicle  for  transporta- 
tion by  water  may  have  been  suggested  to  primeval 
man  by  the  discovery  that  a  floating  log  would  bear  his 
weight.  Astride  of  such  a  ship,  our  ancestors  may  have 
paddled  from  shore  to  shore  of  their  inland  waters.  We 
find  an  atavistic  recurrence,  or  perhaps  persistence,  of 
this  mode  of  navigation  among  the  modern  Australians. 
The  discovery  could  not  have  been  long  delayed,  however, 
that  the  buoyancy  of  the  log  would  not  be  diminished  by 
scooping  out  its  interior  and  giving  it  improved  capacity 
for  passengers  and  freight.  So  the  "  dug-out"  came  into 
existence, —  a  form  of  water-craft  so  well  adapted  to  the 
"  conditions  of  [naval]  existence "  among  many  tribes  of 
our  North  American  Indians,  that  it  survives  as  the  fit- 
test form  of  naval  architecture.  From  the  dug-out  to  the 
seal-skin  kyalc  or  the  bark  canoe,  is  but  a  step,  and  this 
step  is  an  advance  which  seems  to  grow  out  of  surround- 
ing conditions.  The  Eskimo  has  no  logs,  but  many  skins; 
and  the  Chippewayan  has,  from  the  birch,  a  bark  (whence 
certain  vessels  are  still  called  "  barks ")  more  serviceable 
than  logs  or  skins.  These  modifications  of  the  primitive 
craft  are  obviously  determined  by  the  conditions  of  ex- 
istence. And  so  the  skiff  on  the  mill-pond  comes  into 
existence  in  correlation  with  the  lumber  pile  on  the 
bank;  and  the  brave,  stout  life-boat  is  bred  by  the  many 
buffetings  of  a  stormy  surf;  just  as  the  biremes  and  tri- 
remes of  the  ancients  came  from  the  long-continued 
strain  of  the  smaller  boats  by  excessive  loading  and  fre- 
quent swampings.  All  these  forms  of  rowing  craft  sus- 
tain, admissibly,  homological  relations  to  each  other,  and 


THE   GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  307 

teleological  relations  to  surrounding  circumstances,  and 
show  a  regular  developmental  series.  That  is  admitted, 
but  the  point  which  I  wish  to  enforce  as  so  happily  illus- 
trating and  demonstrating  Darwinism  is  that  they  sustain, 
also,  a  genetic  relation  to  each  other.  Obvious  as  this  is, 
many  good  people  seem  to  doubt  it.  I  shall  therefore 
extend  the  argument. 

How  came  the  simple  sail-boat  into  existence?  Evi- 
dently the  wind  made  it.  Had  there  been  no  wind,  there 
would  have  been  no  sails;  therefore  the  wind  is  the  cause 
of  sails.  But  the  simple  sail-boat  or  Mackinac  boat, — 
this  is  an  obvious  modification  of  the  skiff.  Here  is  only 
a  marked  divergence, —  an  incorporation  of  a  new  idea  in 
water-locomotion,  generated  by  an  external  condition  of 
a  marked  character.  But  the  divergence  once  established 
is  likely  to  continue  toward  perfection.  The  little  sail- 
boat grows  into  a  sloop,  with  increased  bulk,  speed,  com- 
plexity, efficiency  and  accommodations.  The  one-masted 
sloop  develops  into  the  two-masted  schooner,  and  this  into 
the  three-masted  brig,  with  ever-increasing  differentiations 
and  complexities.  The  reader  will  at  once  perceive  the 
analogy  between  these  masts  and  the  toes  of  horses.  The 
domestic  horse  is  a  sloop;  the  Hipparion  is  a  brig.  It 
disproves  nothing  that  in  naval  craft  the  numei'ical 
progress  is  the  reverse  of  what  we  see  in  equine  craft. 
This  corresponds  with  the  different  conditions  presented 
by  land  and  water  for  locomotive  purposes.  On  the  land, 
decrease  in  the  number  of  organs;  on  the  water,  increase 
in  the  number  of  organs,  is  the  condition  of  greatest 
efficiency;  and  we  see  in  both  cases  how  beautifully  the 
result  is  correlated  to  the  condition.  Now,  from  the 
floating  log  up  to  the  three-masted  brig,  we  notice  a 


308  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

series  of  forms  representative  of  a  series  of  ideas,  and 
these  sustain  an  evolutionary  relation  to  each  other  in 
each  series.  These  forms  have  evidently  been  evolved 
generatively.  How  else  should  they  be  found  consecu- 
tive? The  ancestors  of  the  horse  are  found  in  Pliohip- 
pits,  Mesolrippiis  and  OroJiippus,  and  it  seems  quite  as 
clear  that  the  saw-log  is  the  great-great-great-grandfather 
of  the  brig.  Thus  the  ship,  which  rolls  like  a  log  (hence 
its  record  is  called  a  "  log-book "),  has  inherited  an  an- 
cestral trait,  like  the  man  with  a  sharp  tip  to  his  ear. 
Now,  if  the  reader  has  followed  me  to  this  point  with- 
out being  convinced,  I  desire  him  to  follow  me  on  an- 
other departure.  Just  as  the  Ascidian  from  which  man 
is  descended,  presented,  in  the  course  of  generations,  di- 
vergences which  became  class-types, —  viz.,  fishes,  reptiles, 
birds  and  mammals, —  so  the  ascidian  ship,  in  the  course 
of  generations,  has  developed  three  classes  of  vessels,  viz., 
rowing-vessels,  wind-vessels,  and  steam-vessels.  The  row- 
ing-vessels answer  to  the  sluggish  reptiles;  the  sailing- 
vessels  are  probably  birds,  and  the  steam-vessels  are  New 
Yorkers, —  of  whom  the  Chicagoan  is  clearly  a  more  fully 
developed  species.  It  is  probable  that  the  vessels  answer- 
ing to  the  class  of  fishes  are  those  like  "  monitors," 
"  steam-rams,"  or  torpedo-boats,  or,  perhaps,  like  those 
Atlantic  passenger  steamers  which  go  under  water.  But 
I  leave  the  fish-ships  out  of  the  argument.  Now,  I  have 
shown  that  the  genera  and  species  of  the  rowing-class 
sustain  genetic  relations  to  each  other,  and  that  those 
of  the  sailing-class  sustain  similar  relationships  to  each 
other  and  to  the  rowing-class.  A  few  words  will  show 
that  this  relationship  runs  through  the  steam-class,  and 
thus  the  whole  subkingdom  of  water-craft.  Look  at  the 


THE    GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  309 

steam-tug, —  strong,  indeed,  like  a  rhinoceros,  but  holding 
a  low  position  in  its  class, —  a  position  little  elevated  above 
that  of  a  sailing-craft,  and,  in  fact,  incorporating  all  the 
fundamental  ideas  of  that  craft,  except  that  engine  is 
substituted  for  sail.  The  ferry-steamer  is  an  improve- 
ment, but  as  the  tug  responds  to  a  peculiar  demand,  so 
does  the  improved  steamer;  and  each  is  the  product  of 
circumstances.  The  tug  is  all  muscle;  the  ferry-boat 
is  broader-shouldered,  for  bearing  its  load  instead  of  pull- 
ing it.  The  river  steamer  is  the  outcome  of  the  fluvia- 
tile  duties  of  the  ferry-boat.  It  arose  in  the  epoch  be- 
fore the  ocean-steamei*,  and  must,  therefore,  have  been 
its  progenitor;  and  the  Great  Eastern  is  the  "Kentucky 
Giant"  of  the  whole  class.  Only  this  and  nothing  -more, 
but  there  have  been  divergences  from  the  straight  line  of 
descent,  as  we  get  aberrant  mammals  like  the  ornitho- 
rhynchus,  the  armadillo  and  the  sea-lion.  The  urgency  of 
surrounding  conditions  has  called  into  existence  such  col- 
lateral types  as  Stevens'  battery  and  the  steam  dredge, — 
all  showing,  by  their  fundamental  plan  of  structure, 
derivation  from  the  ancestral  puffer. 

I  think  the  idea  must  protrude  visibly.  It  is  not  that 
these  forms  in  naval  anatomy  exhibit  an  evolution  of  the 
idea  of  a  water-vehicle.  It  is  not  that  they  all  sustain 
relations  of  fundamental  plan  to  each  other.  It  is  not 
that  they  all  show  adaptation  to  special  ends,  suggesting 
to  the  minds  of  the  credulous  the  notions  of  design  and 
designer.  This  is  the  focus  of  the  logic  :  They  have  all 
descended  from  an  ancestral  saw-log,  and  this  appearance 
of  common  plan  is  not  a  plan,  but  only  a  family  resem- 
blance necessitated  by  the  laws  of  inheritance;  this  gradual 
improvement  comes  from  the  struggle  for  existence,  where- 


310  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

by  the  skiff  robbed  the  kyak  or  the  dug-out  of  the  means 
of  subsistence,  the  schooner  robbed  the  sloop,  and  the  brig 
the  schooner,  and  finally  the  capabilities  of  these  various 
craft  have  been  developed  by  the  demands  of  the  circum- 
stances under  which  they  existed, —  the  intervention  of 
intelligence  and  purpose  is  not  to  be  thought  of.  Just  as 
the  proboscis  of  the  elephant  conies  from  the  necessity  of 
reaching  beyond  the  ability  of  his  short  neck,  and  the 
reduction  of  the  toes  of  Mesohippus  from  the  desiccation 
of  an  ancient  marsh  (and  the  imagination  of  a  modern 
one),  just  so  a  continual  breeze  developed  the  first  sail;  a 
longing  for  more  rapid  transit  begat  engine  and  paddle- 
wheel  ;  habitual  butting  resulted  in  a  steam-ram,  and 
much  hitting  hardened  the  ocean-steamer  into  a  monitor. 

I  hope  now  the  case  is  clear.* 

It  would  seem  that  the  irony  of  the  foregoing  sally 
was  sufficiently  patent  to  any  but  a  Jurassic  Swabian. 
Manifestly,  the  reality  of  the  genealogical  succession  of 
equine  types  is  not  denied,  but  only  the  assumption  that 
the  simple  fact  of  succession  (in  connection  with  gradua- 
tion of  structures)  proves  that  it  must  have  been  a  genea- 
logical succession.  Yet,  of  the  half-dozen  or  more  responses 
called  forth,  several  indicate  that  their  authors  had  "  failed 
to  .see  the  point,"  however  protrusive.  One  signed  "  Direct 
Creationist,"  and  conceived  in  a  similar  ironical  vein,  pre- 
tended to  deny  the  relation  of  parent  and  offspring  alto- 
gether, because,  as  he  suggested,  such  relation  could  not 
be  admitted  in  the  graduated  series  of  aquatic  vehicles. 

*I  am  sure  that  Professor  Marsh  must  have  appreciated  the  entire  good  na- 
ture with  which  this  little  satire  was  aimed  at  a  weakness  in  the  claims  set  up 
for  the  palasontological  evidence  of  derivation  of  species.  He  knows  full  well 
that  I  have  always  been  in  accord  with  all  the  world  in  conceding  him  the  highest 
honor  for  the  ability  of  his  researches. 


THE    GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  311 

This  was  a  pungent  and  capital  rejoiner  (T  am  not  writ- 
ing ironically  now, — an  explanation  intended  for  Boeotians), 
and  at  first  view  seems  to  expose  a  weakness  in  the  rea- 
soning of  my  article.  Here,  he  says,  in  effect,  are  two 
parallel  graduated  series:  1.  A  structural  gradation  in 
aquatic  vehicles  ;  2.  A  structural  gradation  in  successive 
equine  types.  Now,  the  author  of  "  The  Genealogy  of 
Ships," — turning  his  irony  into  direct  speech, —  tells  us 
that  because  there  is  no  genealogical  relation  in  the  first 
series  it  may  be  there  is  none  in  the  second  series.  "  Di- 
rect Creationist,"  however,  takes  the  other  alternative, 
and  maintains  (ironically,  with  the  first  writer)  that  be- 
cause there  is  no  genetic  relation  either  in  the  first  series 
or  the  second,  there  is  no  such  thing  as  genetic  relation 
anywhere.  Or,  converting  his  irony  to  direct  speech,  it 
means  that  inasmuch  as  we  are  certain  that  genetic  rela- 
tions exist  in  the  actual  world,  we  must  admit  that  in 
the  horse  series,  where  family  resemblances  exist  similar 
to  those  in  the  actual  world,  they  imply  similarly  some 
real  genetic  relation.  This  is  the  argument  of  the  re- 
joinder reduced  to  its  simplest  terms.  But  now,  this  is 
the  very  same  old  pretense  whose  validity  I  had  chal- 
lenged. "  Direct  Creationist "  had  simply  masked  the  old 
non-sequititr  and  pi'esented  us  a  view  (I  posteriori.  The 
family  resemblance  in  the  succession  of  water  vehicles  is 
fully  as  exact  and  real  as  in  the  equine  succession  ;  and 
therefore,  so  far  as  the  fact  of  succession  is  concerned, 
proves  just  as  conclusively  a  genetic  relationship.  So  af- 
ter the  two  writers  had  grappled  and  completely  rolled 
over  once,  it  appears  that  the  author  of  the  "  Genealogy 
of  Ships"  must  be  recognized  as  the  upper  layer  in  the 
scrimmage. 


312  SPAKKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMEB. 

But  it  might  be  suggested  that  each  term  in  the  equine 
series  belonged  to  one  of  the  kingdoms  of  organic  nature, 
in  which  genetic  relationships  constitute  an  eminent  char- 
acteristic; while  the  forms  of  naval  structure  are  known 
to  possess  no  such  characteristic.  This  was  the  purport 
of  the  replies  of  "  Pikestaff,"  "  I.  J.  ft.,"  and  "  G.  K.  G." 
But  right  here  lay  the  gist  of  my  irony.  It  was  because 
we  could  conclude  the  same  thing  concerning  inorganic 
structures  as  had  been  inferred  concerning  organic  struct- 
ures that  that  mode  of  reasoning  became  reduced  ad 
absurdum.  Not  that  the  inference  concerning  the  organic 
series  was  impossible;  it  was  simply  not  what  was  claimed — 
demonstrated.  Admitted,  with  the  utmost  alacrity,  that 
the  genetic  relation  is  a  possibility  in  one  case,  and  an 
impossibility  in  the  other;  yet,  even  in  the  possible  case, 
there  is  another  explanation  which  is  also  possible,  —  I 
need  not  say  equally  probable,  —  and  that  is  the  possibility 
of  a  series  of  independent  origins.  This  is  so  far  from 
absurd  that  it  was  almost  the  unanimous  opinion  of  man- 
kind till  within  a  few  years.  It  was  defended  by  Linnaeus 
and  Cuvier  and  Agassiz.  The  latter  stood  up  in  the  midst 
of  the  storm  of  opposition,  and  almost  on  his  dying  day 
flung  fact  after  fact  and  inference  after  inference  in  the 
faces  of  the  confronting  army  of  Darwinists.  So  far  is 
another  explanation  possible,  not  to  say  plausible.  It  is 
perfectly  easy  to  conceive  that  each  new  type  may  have 
been  a  separate  origination.  Even  if  this  were  the  case, 
we  should  expect  that  each  new  origination  would  be 
based  on  a  plan  of  structure  having  all  its  fundamentals 
in  common  with  preceding  types.  For  why  does  any 
organism  have  such  structures  as  it  has  unless  to  be 
suited  to  the  conditions  in  which  it  is  placed?  And  if 


THE    GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  313 

the  conditions  remain  essentially  unchanged,  why  should 
a  new  origination  be  expected  to  have  a  structural  con- 
formation fundamentally  different  from  its  predecessors? 
The  structure  must  remain  fundamentally  similar,  even 
if  it  be  a  new  origination;  and  thus,  as  Agassiz  used  to 
argue,  a  relationship  of  thought  would  be  seen  to  run 
through  the  whole  series,  binding  it  in  a  unity  as  real 
as  if  threaded  on  a  genealogical  line.  If,  then,  a  series 
of  independent  originations  is  something  so  possible,  and 
so  defensible,  is  it  not  plainly  a  petitio  principii  to  assume 
that  genetic  relationship  is  the  only  possible  explanation 
of  the  graduated  successions  revealed  in  the  history  of  the 
equine  type? 

There  was  another  ground  of  hesitation  to  accept  ge- 
netic relation  as  the  necessary  explanation  of  equine  suc- 
cession. So  far  as  conclusive  evidence  had  gone,  genetic 
relationship  was  one  of  approximate  identity.  Inheritance 
meant  reproduction  or  continuance  of  the  same  specific 
type.  True,  indeed,  that  susceptibility  of  variation  co- 
existed; but  all  observed  variation  among  individuals  of 
the  same  ancestry  exhibited  but  narrow  structural  range, 
and  seemed  to  tend  to  disappearance.  But  the  range  of 
structure  from  Orohippus  to  E quus  was  great.  They 
were  not  only  different  species,  but  different  genera.  Who 
had  ever  known  generation  to  wander  so  far  away  from 
a  primitive  pattern?  There  existed,  in  truth,  a  real  want 
of  analogy  between  the  relationships  in  the  terms  of  the 
equine  series  and  those  in  the  generations  of  an  estab- 
lished lineage. 

One  point  only  was  suggested  by  the  respondents  which 
tended  positively  to  turn  attention  toward  genetic  descent 
as  the  true  explanation  of  equine  relationships.  "  M.  B.  B." 


314  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST^   HAMMER. 

raised  the  question  of  the  significance  of  "  rudimental 
organs."  Now,  the  rudiments  of  a  "  row-lock "  upon  a 
sail-rigged  vessel  would  be  entirely  inexplicable;  but  the 
rudiments  of  eyes  in  the  blind  fish  of  the  Mammoth  Cave 
become  explicable,  because  we  know  they  might  be  the 
effete  remnants  of  functional  eyes  in  some  remote  pro- 
genitor. Rudimental  organs,  then,  it  must  be  admitted, 
add  a  separate  probability  to  the  theory  that  equine  re- 
lationships are  relationships  of  consanguinity.  The  horse- 
series  itself  offers  in  its  "splint  bones"  and  other  struct- 
ures admirable  examples  of  rudimental  organs. 

In  this  connection,  it  only  remains  to  direct  the  reader's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  original  article  not  only 
does  not  deny  the  probability  of  a  genealogical  descent 
along  the  equine  succession  of  past  times,  but  it  does  not 
deny  the  efficiency  of  the  Darwinian  principle  of  ''  natural 
selection."  It  implies  that  this  is  not  an  adequate  and 
all-sufficient  principle.  Nor  does  it  imply,  in  offering  a 
parallel  between  a  series  of  structures  resulting  from 
human  contrivance,  and  a  series  of  structures  appearing 
in  the  natural  world,  that  therefore  the  true  and  only 
conception  of  "  designs "  in  nature  is  typified  by  the  lim- 
ited, groping  contrivances  of  man.  This  was  charged  in 
the  reply  signed  by  "  Pikestaff.''  In  fact,  the  point  of 
my  satire  did  not  depend  on  any  assumption  concerning 
designs  in  nature.  If,  however,  it  were  needed  to  offer 
a  reply  to  the  Pikestaffian  objection,  —  for  it  possesses  a 
generic  character,  —  I  should  point  simply  to  the  line  of 
thought  set  forth  in  the  last  article  of  this  volume.  The 
Pikestaffian  objection  has  become  quite  threadbare.  I 
think  the  owners  would  do  well  to  throw  it  now  upon 
the  pile  of  old  rags. 


THE   GENEALOGY   OF  SHIPS.  315 

There  are  many  apt  illustrations  of  the  invalidity  of 
arguing  a  material  continuity  in  a  series  of  terms  con- 
nected by  morphological  relationships.  One  of  the  re- 
spondents to  the  article  on  the  "  Genealogy  of  Ships," 
"  S.  H.  M.,"  regarded  it  "  a  good  case  of  atavism  in  jokes," 
since,  many  years  before,  some  writer  in  one  of  the  Eng- 
lish reviews  had  contemplated  the  articles  of  furnitm-e  in 
his  study,  —  chairs,  tables,  bureau,  etc.,  —  as  only  a  series 
of  modifications  of  the  three-legged  stool.  Another  re- 
spondent,—  and  this  is  Pikestaff,  again,  —  recalled  Pro- 
fessor Morse's  humorous  lecture  before  "  Section  Q,"  in 
which  an  old  hat  was  made  to  undergo,  crayonically,  a 
transformation  by  successive  differentiations  into  all  the 
types  of  head-gear  known  to  man  or  woman.  This  was 
funny,  as  much  cachinnation  testified;  but  suppose  Pro- 
fessor Morse  had  begun  with  the  foot  of  Eohippus,  and 
manipulated  it  in  a  corresponding  way,  he  would  have 
shown  that  horses,  as  well  as  hats,  might  be  separately 
originated. 

In  another  place  I  have  instanced  the  history  of  the 
evolution  of  "wheeled  vehicles,"*  and  this,  it  appears, 
has  been  taken  up  also  by  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor.f  A  kindred 
example,  quite  admirable  in  its  completeness,  is  furnished 
by  the  historical  and  ethnical  development  of  the  plow. 
This  has  lately  been  discussed  by  Mr.  Tylor,t  and  the 
general  purport  of  it,  so  far  as  this  point  is  concerned, 
may  be  condensed  into  the  following  statement  of  success- 

*  The  Doctrine  of  Evolution,  pp.  90-1.  See,  also,  Reconciliation  of  Science 
and  Religion,  172-3. 

tE.  B.  Tylor,  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  London,  1880.  Mr. 
Tylor  had  previously  mentioned  other  cases,  such  as  the  evolution  of  fire-arms, 
the  cross-bow,  fire-drill,  metallic  axes,  etc.  Primitive  Culture,  i,  13-14. 

t  Tylor,  Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute,  1880.  The  article  is  repro- 
duced in  Popular  Science  Monthly,  xviii,  448-53.  See,  also,  Tylor's  Anthropology. 


316  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ive  stages  in  the  evolution.  These,  while  taxonomically 
successive,  do  not,  it  will  be  seen,  present  absolutely  a 
chronological  successiveness.  These  facts,  therefore,  offer 
exactly  the  same  phenomena  as  are  frequently  met  with 
in  palseontological  studies. 

STAGES    IN    THE    DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    PLOW. 

1.  A  simple  digging  stick,  the  katta  of  Australia.     This 
primitive  type,  like  the  foraminiferal  one  in  paleontology, 
still  survives. 

2.  A   two-pointed  stick.      Still   used   by  the  Bodo   and 
Dhimal  of  northeastern  India. 

3.  A  bent  (or  angulated)  digging  stick  or  "hoe."     The 
tima  of  the  Maories.      Also  the  hacker  of  Sweden,  from 
ten    centuries   back   to  within    a   generation.      A   similar 
but  more  finished  tool  was  used   in  ancient  Etruria  and 
in  Syracuse. 

4.  Bent  piece  of  wood,  three  fingers  wide,  fixed   to   a 
handle.     American  Indians  in  modern  times.     Something 
similar  in  early  Rome. 

5.  Shoulder-blade  of  an  elk  or  buffalo  (or  a  shell)  af- 
fixed to  a  handle.     Modern  American  Indians.    The  Ameri- 
can Mound  Builders  used  a  stone  blade  affixed  to  a  handle* 

6.  Implement  with  metal  blade  fixed  to  a  handle.    The 
Kaffir  axe. 

7.  Furrow  -  crook    or    large    hacker,   drawn    by    hand. 
Sweden,  within  ten  centuries. 

8.  Plow-crook,  or  furrow-crook  with  share  and  handles 
separate.      Sweden,  within  ten  centuries.      A  similar   im- 
plement, drawn  by  men,  with  rope  attached,  was  used  in 
ancient  Egypt. 

*C.  Rau,  Smithsonian  Annual  Report,  1863,  379. 


THE    GENEALOGY    OF   SHIPS.  317 

9.  Plow-crook,  with   share   shod   with   a   three-cornered 
bill.     Sweden,  alter  the  last. 

10.  Plow-crook,  like  the  last,  but  drawn  by  mares  or 
cows.     Sweden,  after  the  ninth.    Similar  implement  drawn 
by  men   in   ancient  Egypt.      Plow  with  metal   share  and 
bent  pole  shown  in  an  early  manuscript  of  Hesiod. 

11.  Common  plow  with  share,  mouldboard,  beam   and 
handle.     Fifty  years  back. 

12.  Modern  plow  with  coulter.     Something  very  similar 
was  used  in  the  time  of  Pliny. 

13.  Modern  plow   with   coulter  and  wheel.     The   same 
was  used  with  two  wheels  in  the  time  of  Pliny. 

14.  Self-acting  plow.     Recent  times. 

15.  Steam  plow.     Recent. 

Similar  fundamental  relations  without  genetic  connec- 
tion are  exemplified  in  series  of  chemical  homologues, 
where  from  one  end  to  the  other  the  contiguous  terms 
differ  simply  by  an  arithmetical  common  difference.  Ed- 
ward von  Hartmann  has  directed  his  attention  to  the 
defect  in  Darwinian  argumentation  on  which  I  am  here  ani- 
madverting.* In  referring  to  "  the  ideal  and  the  genea- 
logical relationship  of  types,"  he  says,  "  it  would  be  alto- 
gether too  hasty  to  argue  in  the  case  of  palaeontological 
data  from  a  simple  post  hoc  to  a  propter  hoc"  (p.  11).  The 
relationship  of  types  in  the  mineral  kingdom,  he  says,  is 
purely  ideal,  not  genealogical.  Even  in  a  case  where  the 
transitions  proceed  by  insensible  degrees,  we  are  not  au- 
thorized to  argue,  for  this  reason,  that  the  successive  terms 
have  a  common  origin  ;  for  otherwise  "  one  might  assert 

*Von  Hartmann,  Wahrheit  und  Irrthum  in  Darwinisms.  Eine  Kritische 
Darstellung  der  organischen  Entwickelungstheorie.  Berlin,  1875.  See  especially 
pages  11,  12,  13,  15. 


318  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

that  the  hyperbola  had  descended  from  the  parabola,  and 
this  from  the  ellipse,  and  this  from  the  circle  or  even,  by 
disappearance  of  the  minor  axis,  from  a  straight  line" 
(p.  13).  So  again,  speaking  of  the  works  of  human  art, 
he  says :  "  If,  for  instance,  it  be  said  that  the  Gothic 
cathedral  was  developed  from  the  Romanic,  and  this  from 
the  basilica,  and  this  again  from  some  sort  of  Roman 
market-hall  ;  and  if,  further,  it  be  possible  to  point  out 
an  insensible  gradation  from  one  structure  to  another,  no 
one  would  consider  himself,  for  these  reasons,  authorized 
to  conclude  that  any  given  structure  in  the  Gothic  style 
had  been  produced  by  an  actual  transformation  of  the 
circular  arch  into  the  pointed  arch.  True,  there  exists 
here  a  genetic  outgrowth  of  one  type  out  of  another,  but 
yet  only  in  an  ideal  sense,  not  in  the  actual  structure. 
That  is,  the  genesis  is  a  fact,  not  as  something  external, 
but  as  a  psychological  genesis  of  thought  and  artistic 
ideal,  one  conception  becoming  historically  developed  out 
of  the  other"(pp.  15-16). 

The  palseontological  evidence  as  proof  of  the  derivative 
origin  of  species  has  been  publicly  discussed  by  Professor 
Huxley,  and  I  invite  the  reader's  attention  to  an  examina- 
tion of  his  method,  as  presented  in  the  following  chapter. 


HUXLEY  AND  EVOLUTION. 


T/ie  Direct  Evidences  of  Evolution:  Three  Lectures  in  New  York, 
September  18,  20  and  22,  1876.  I.  The  Untenable  Hypotheses;  II. 
Circumstantial  Evidence  of  Evolution;  III.  The  Demonstrative 
Evidence.  New  York  Tribune  Extra,  No.  36.* 

FOR  the  complete,  authentic,  and  accessible  form  of 
the  lectures  cited  above,  we  are  indebted  to  a  phase 
of  newspaper  enterprise  which  is  purely  and  creditably 
American.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  make  acknowledgment 
of  the  great  service  rendered  to  science  and  literature 
in  America  by  the  cultured  editorship  of  the  New  York 
Tribune,  which  discovers  so  large  resources  of  "  news " 
in  the  events  and  utterances  of  the  world  of  science  and 
letters. 

The  lectures  themselves  were  widely  heralded;  every 
movement  of  the  distinguished  foreigner  was  made  a 
sensation,  and  the  whole  country  had  been  lifted  to  the 
tip-toe  of  expectation.  The  theme  announced  was  one 
which  had  already  agitated  every  thinking  circle  of  two 
continents.  Professor  Huxley  had  long  been  distinguished 
as  a  bold  leader  in  the  advocacy  of  a  hypothesis  which 

*  The  report  of  the  New  York  Tribune  was  "  carefully  revised  by  Prof. 
Huxley,"  and  republished  in  The  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Ivi,  43-72,  207-25, 
285-98,  November  and  December  1876,  and  January  1877.  The  titles  given  in  this 
edition  are  I.  The  Three  Hypotheses  of  the  History  of  Nature ;  II.  The  Negative 
and  Favorable  Evidence;  III.  The  Demonstrative  Evidence  of  Evolution. 
Much  of  the  two  following  articles  is  reproduced  substantially  from  the  Meth- 
odist Quarterly  Review  for  April  1871.  They  will  be  found,  however,  to  contain 
very  extensive  changes  and  additions 

319 


320  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

required  a  reinterpretation  of  some  passages  of  scripture; 
and  a  vague  expectation  had  been  awakened  that  some 
sort  of  a  skirmish  between  science  and  theology  was  im- 
pending. 

It  is  fair  to  record  the  fact,  however,  that  no  conflict 
with  the  fundamental  principles  of  religious  faith  was 
anticipated  by  any  holding  representative  positions  in 
science;  nor  were  corresponding  representatives  of  theo- 
logical learning  fearful,  to  the  least  extent,  that  any 
phase  of  science  so  sustained  by  evidence  as  to  be  gen- 
erally accepted  by  the  scientific,  could  contravene  the 
accepted  fundamentals  of  religious  belief.  The  popular 
apprehensions  existed,  as  they  have  always  existed,  in  the 
minds  of  one  class  who  have  no  adequate  knowledge  of 
the  nature  and  force  of  scientific  evidence,  and  of  an- 
other class  who  rather  enjoy  the  spectacle  when  theology 
gets  a  pelting,  even  if  with  mere  "  tufts  of  grass."  Un- 
doubtedly it  is  the  depraved  heart  which  prompts  to  a 
large  share  of  the  satisfaction  felt  in  such  a  case;  but 
there  seems  to  be  also  a  semi-humoi-ous  element  in  our 
nature  which  enjoys,  as  a  mild  sensation,  any  discom- 
posure manifested  by  theology  at  being  even  unjustly 
accused  of  jealousy  toward  science. 

It  is  fair,  also,  to  record  the  fact  that  the  three  lect- 
ures of  Professor  Huxley  do  not  contain  a  single  expres- 
sion avowing  or  intimating  an  atheistic  belief;  and  all 
assertions  to  the  effect  that  "  he  more  than  suggested 
that  his  aim  was  atheistic "  have  no  other  foundation 
than  the  opinion  of  their  authors  that  the  doctrine  of 
evolution  means  atheism.  On  the  contrary,  Professor 
Huxley  has  expressed  himself  in  such  terms  as  to  clearly 


HUXLEY    AND    EVOLUTION.  321 

indicate  that  he  reserves  a  place  for  original  creative 
agency.  He  says: 

"  Though  we  are  quite  clear  about  the  constancy  of 
nature  at  the  present  time,  and  in  the  present  order  of 
things,  it  by  no  means  follows  necessarily  that  we  are 
justified  in  expanding  this  generalization  into  the  past, 
and  in  denying  absolutely  that  there  may  have  been  a 
time  when  Nature  [evidence]  did  not  follow  a  fixed  [first] 
order,  when  the  relations  of  cause  and  effect  were  not 
[fixed  and]  definite,  and  when  external  agencies  did  not 
intervene  in  the  general  course  of  nature."  * 

And  again: 

"  My  present  business  is  not  with  the  question  as  to 
how  nature  has  originated, —  as  to  the  causes  which  have 
led  to  her  origination,  but  as  to  the  manner  and  order  of 
the  appearance  of  natural  objects  [her  origination].  *  * 
This  is  a  strictly  [an]  historical  question.  *  :  But  the 
other  question  about  creation  is  a  philosophical  question, 
and  one  which  cannot  be  solved  or  even  approached  [or 
touched]  by  the  historical  method." 

The  first  of  the  above  quotations  is  not  wholly  unam- 
biguous. It  seems  that  the  lecturer  must  employ  the 
term  "  cause "  in  a  physical  rather  than  a  metaphysical 
sense.  He  directs  our  attention  to  a  time  when  the  pres- 
ent order  of  nature  had  not  begun  to  exist,  and  the 
orders  of  sequence  of  physical  effects  had  not  been  or- 

*  The  words  in  brackets  are  contained  only  in  the  Tribune  report;  the  words 
in  italics  are  contained  only  in  the  revision  as  it  appeared  in  the  Popular  Science 
Monthly.  It  would  seem  that  the  word  "  not"  in  the  last  clause  is  inadvertently 
employed,  since  it  makes  the  idea  incongruous  with  the  one  immediately  pre- 
ceding. The  author  apparently  intended  to  say  that  "  we  have  no  right  to  deny 
that  there  may  have  been  a  time  when  external  agencies  did  intervene  in  the 
general  course  of  nature,"  or  "  that  we  have  no  right  to  affirm  that  there  never 
was  a  time  when  external  agencies  did  not  intervene." 
31 


322  SPARKS    FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

dained.  He  must  have  contemplated  an  adequate  efficiency 
for  the  inauguration  of  the  present  order.  In  admitting 
the  conception  and  possibility  of  a  different  order  he  at 
least  implies  the  conception  of  a  power  superior  to  the 
present  order  adequate  to  begin,  and  therefore  to  end, 
its  existence.  The  second  quotation  means  clearly  that 
the  evolution  hypothesis  may  be  established,  and  yet  leave 
every  person  free  to  satisfy  himself  in  reference  to  both 
the  efficient  and  the  final  cause  of  evolution.  It  means 
that  the  theist  may  posit  a  Creator  at  the  beginning, 
and  the  scientist  has  no  evidence  to  array  against  the 
position.  This  is  clearly  indicated  by  the  nature  of  the 
change  in  phraseology  introduced  by  the  author  in  the 
revised  edition.  This  quotation  interpreted  in  its  impli- 
cations means,  we  think,  even  more.  If  natural  history 
cannot  reveal  the  nature  of  causal  efficiency  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  series,  it  can  no  more  reveal  the  nature  of 
the  efficiency  which  manifests  itself  at  eveiy  term  of  the 
series;  that  is,  the  hypothesis  of  evolution  authorizes  the 
believer  in  immanent  divine  power  to  posit  such  a  power 
in  every  term  of  the  evolution.  If  the  lecturer  recog- 
nized such  legitimate  inferences  from  his  language,  it  is 
greatly  to  be  regretted  that  he  was  not  more  explicit. 
It  would,  indeed,  have  been  a  departure  from  strictly 
scientific  method  (in  distinction  from  philosophical),  but 
it  would  have  been  a  courtesy  appreciated,  if  not  de- 
served, by  the  religious  public.  If,  however,  a  scientist 
chooses  to  disguise  his  opinions  on  a  theological  question, 
or  to  refrain  from  forming  any,  it  is  probably  his  right 
to  do  so.  There  may  be,  nevertheless,  a  degree  of  re- 
serve amounting  to  an  affectation.  The  "science  "of  com- 
parative religion  teaches  us  that  religious  beliefs  are  part 


HUXLEY    AND    EVOLUTION.  323 

of  the  mental  furnitui-e,  even  of  savages;  and  the  infer- 
ence from  this  is,  that  when  a  scientist  studiously  con- 
ceals his  religious  beliefs  he  is  suppressing  a  part  of  his 
nature  to  copy  a  fashion,  or  to  gratify  a  fancy  for  making 
an  exhibition  of  an  unsymmetrical  mentality,  as  Chinese 
women  pride  themselves  in  half-suppressed  feet,  and  our 
own  women  used  to  fancy  a  half-developed  waist.  It  is 
not,  of  course,  necessary  for  a  scientist  to  make  a  parade 
of  his  religious  beliefs;  it  sometimes  becomes  an  unpleas- 
ant spectacle;  but  when  he  has  never  once  made  an 
unreserved  avowal  of  such  belief;  when  he  has  been  ex- 
tensively misconstrued,  and  half  the  world  is  on  tip-toe 
of  curiosity  to  learn  his  real  opinions,  persistent  conceal- 
ment looks  so  much  like  a  desire  to  pique  curiosity,  or 
defy  misconstruction,  or  court  public  mention,  that  indeed, 
public  impatience  must  be  excused.  But  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
in  any  event,  that  American  dissentients  from  Professor 
Huxley's  scientific  or  theological  or  non-committal  positions 
will  afford  him  no  ground  to  complain  of  contemptuous 
criticism  and  misquotation.* 

Before  proceeding  to  the  consideration  of  the  "  Direct 
Evidences  of  Evolution,"  as  presented  by  Professor  Hux- 
ley, we  desire  to  enter  our  dissent  from  some  of  his  pre- 
liminary positions. 

1.  The  MiUonic  conception  of  the  creation  is  not  entirely 
the  biblical  one.  Professor  Huxley,  in  his  first  lecture, 
has  presented  us  two  "  hypotheses "  concerning  the  origin 
of  the  existing  order  of  nature,  which  he  pronounces 

*  Those  who  feel  curious  to  know  more  of  Professor  Huxley's  theology 
may  discover  some  faint  light  in  a  perusal  of  the  article  entitled  "  School 
Boards."  in  Critiques  and  Addreeses.  It  will  be  noticed  by  the  readers  of  Hux- 
ley's writings  that  he  employs  the  word  "  theology  "  to  signify  a  body  of  ecclesi- 
astical principles  and  practices,  and  not  the  science  of  God. 


324  SPAEKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

"untenable."  The  first  is  the  theory  held  by  many  of 
the  Greek  philosophers,  though  not  by  the  greatest  of 
them,  —  Socrates,  Plato  and  Aristotle,  nor  by  the  Stoics 
and  Eleatics,  nor  indeed  by  Xeniades,  Democritus  and 
Epicurus,  —  that  the  order  of  the  world  is  eternal.  The 
lecturer  showed,  as  has  been  done  time  and  again  by 
others,  that  the  succession  of  events  in  the  past  history 
of  the  world,  as  revealed  by  geological  science,  is  such 
as  necessarily  implies  a  commencement,  —  a  beginning  of 
its  organic  history,  and  a  beginning  of  its  cosmical  his- 
tory. The  second  "  untenable  hypothesis  "  is  that  of  "  cre- 
ation." For  the  purpose  of  making  known  his  conception 
of  the  "  creation  hypothesis "  he  assumes  that  which  is 
set  forth  in  the  epic  of  John  Milton;  and,  after  presenting 
Milton's  graphic  though  grotesque  picture  of  the  origin 
of  animal  forms,  proceeds  to  show  that  it  is  not  scienti- 
fically exact.  This  was  no  difficult  undertaking,  since 
there  was  probably  not  an  intelligent  person  in  his  audi- 
ence, or  in  the  city  of  New  York,  who  would  maintain 
that  Milton's  picture  is  a  representation  scientifically  exact. 
It  is  doubtful  if  the  poet  himself  regarded  it  as  a  literal 
history  of  events  in  detail.  Milton  employed  a  warm 
and  productive  imagination,  and  it  might  be  affirmed  in 
advance  that  the  poet's  pen  would  produce  a  picture  whose 
exuberance  of  metaphor  would  prove  eminently  distasteful 
to  cold  and  rigorous  science. 

Now,  we  cannot  refrain  from  expressing  wonder  that 
a  scientific  gentleman,  entering  upon  a  scientific  examina- 
tion of  theories  of  the  origin  of  things,  should  pass  by 
every  scientific  or  philosophic  exposition  of  the  "  creation 
theory,"  and  go  complacently  to  the  glowing  picture  of  a 
poetic  imagination  for  the  most  rationally  stated  form  of 


HUXLEY   AND   EVOLUTION.  325 

that  theory;  and  that,  too,  a  picture  painted  more  than 
two  centuries  previously,  when  biological  and  geological 
science  were  scarcely  in  embryo.  By  the  side  of  that 
picture,  however,  he  placed  the  latest  aspect  of  the  evo- 
lution theory.  The  disingenuousness  of  such  a  compari- 
son is  grotesque.  It  is  not  asserted  that  Professor  Huxley 
felt  the  comparison  to  be  disingenuous.  It  must  be  as- 
sumed that  he  intended  to  be  fair  and  just.  We  will 
admit,  then,  that  he  did  not  know  the  Miltonic  picture 
to  be  a  mere  burlesque  of  the  science  of  those  holding 
the  "  creation  theory."  We  will  admit,  in  other  words, 
that  he  had  not  informed  himself  concerning  the  theory 
which  he  publicly  proposed  to  overthrow,  but  succeeded 
only  in  ridiculing. 

But  the  lecturer  attempted  also  to  show  that  the  Mil- 
tonic  order  of  creation  is  not  sustained  by  palaeontology. 
Well,  if  the  language  of  Milton  means  and  implies  what 
the  lecturer  claimed,  we  must  admit  that  the  scientific 
record  diverges.  But  what  was  the  necessity  of  setting 
up  blind  old  John  Milton  and  knocking  him  down  again 
amid  the  jeers  of  such  an  audience  ?  It  would  have 
been  an  equal  feat  to  indict  and  convict  old  Thomas 
Burnet  for  the  showing  of  his  "  Sacred  Theory  of  the 
Earth."  We  can  discover  no  explanation  of  this  exploit, 
save  the  lecturer's  belief  that  the  Miltonic  conception  of 
.creation  "is  that  which  has  been  instilled  into  every  one 
of  us  in  our  childhood  "  [and  that  it  is  generally  accepted 
as  the  most  consistent  form  of  the  creation  theory].* 
He  does  not  pretend  that  in  extinguishing  the  Miltonic 

*  The  words  in  brackets  were  omitted  from  the  "  carefully  revised  "  edition. 
From  this  it  might  be  inferred  that  the  lecturer  was  aware  that  the  Miltonic  the- 
ory is  not  generally  accepted  as  scientifically  authentic. 


326  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

phantasmagoria  the  cosmogony  of  Genesis  falls  to  the 
ground.  He  says  expressly:  "  I  do  not  for  one  moment 
venture  to  say  that  it  could  properly  be  called  the  bibli- 
cal doctrine,"  and  admits  that  such  assumption  would  be 
met  by  the  authority  of  many  eminent  scholars,  to  say 
nothing  of  men  of  science,  who,  in  recent  times,  have 
absolutely  denied  that  this  doctrine  is  to  be  found  in 
Genesis  at  all."  He  does  give  us  clearly  to  understand 
that  the  Miltonic  theory  is  "  untenable,"  "  whatever  the 
source  from  which  that  hypothesis  might  be  derived,  or 
whatever  the  authority  it  might  be  supported  by."  Just 
so  far,  therefore,  as  exegesis  may  be  able  to  show  that  the 
Miltonic  hypothesis,  as  set  forth  by  Huxley,  is  a  correct 
interpretation  of  Genesis,  so  far  the  lecturer  disputes  the 
biblical  record. 

Now,  though  we  do  not  propose  to  enter  upon  an 
exegetical  examination,  we  desire  to  record  a  denial  that 
the  Miltonic  order  of  creation,  as  set  forth  by  Huxley, 
does  represent  the  teaching  of  Genesis,  or  the  views  of 
well  informed  scholars  as  to  that  teaching.  We  need  not 
inquire  whether  the  lecturer  correctly  sets  forth  the  Mil- 
tonic  ideas.  It  is  what  he  sets  forth  that  is  so  clearly 
antagonized  by  the  facts  of  palaeontology.  We  deny  that 
Genesis,  in  giving  us  the  creation  of  plants  upon  the 
"third  day,"  means  "the  plants  which  now  live  —  the 
trees  and  shrubs  which  we  now  have."  The  language 
refers  to  that  oi'der  of  existence  familiarly  exemplified 
in  "  grass,"  and  "  herb,"  and  "  tree."  Hence,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  infer  a  second  creation  of  modern  plants  to 
which  the  recoi'd  makes  no  allusion.  We  deny,  again, 
that  Genesis,  in  affirming  the  creation  of  terrestrial  crea- 
tures, familiarly  exemplified  in  "  cattle,"  "  creeping  things," 


HUXLEY   AND   EVOLUTION.  327 

and  "  beasts,"  has  any  reference  to  such  an  obscure,  sparse 
and  incomplete  terrestrial  fauna  as  would  be  represented 
by  a  few  snails,  scorpions  and  insects  breathing  the  air  of 
Coal  Measure  times.  Clearly,  the  fauna  to  which  Genesis 
refers  is  a  complete  terrestrial  fauna,  eminently  character- 
ized by  mammalia.  Can  Professor  Huxley  affirm  that 
palaeontology  has  found  any  "  cattle  "  fossilized  in  our  coal- 
beds?  Now  a  complete  terrestrial  fauna,  such  as  included 
"cattle,"  did  not  appear  until  the  period  which  geology, 
unbiased  by  theories  of  creation,  has  characterized  as  the 
"  Reign  of  Mammals."  Every  geological  tyro  knows  this. 
It  is  incorrect,  therefore,  to  affirm  that  the  biblical  (or 
even  Miltonic)  "  sixth  day "  must  be  held  to  begin  "  in 
the  middle  of  the  Palaeozoic  formations;"  and  hence  the 
Bible  does  not  raise  a  conflict  with  the  facts  by  placing 
the  advent  of  the  cattle-fauna  anterior  to  the  advent  of 
birds.  We  deny,  again,  that  the  Bible  declares  the  crea- 
tion of  "  whales  "  upon  the  "  fifth  day,"  before  the  advent 
of  birds.  It  proclaims  the  creation  of  tanninim  (probably 
Enaliosaurs)  and  other  marine  creatures.  We  deny  that 
the  biblical  scheme  is  to  find  its  parallel,  —  where  Hugh 
Miller,  Chalmers,  Pye  Smith,  Silliman,  et  al.,  sought  for  it 
disastrously,  —  in  that  fraction  of  terrestrial  history  which 
has  passed  since  the  beginning  of  sedimentation.  We 
hold  that  its  reach  is  coextensive  with  the  scientific  un- 
folding —  from  fire-mist  to  man.  We  maintain,  finally, 
that  the  order  of  the  biblical  record  is  step  by  step  parallel 
with  the  geologic  ;  and  that  the  method  of  origination 
depicted  by  Genesis  is  not  at  all  incompatible  with  the 
hypothesis  of  evolution.  We  maintain,  in  fact,  that  the 
origination  of  new  forms  by  descent  is  only  creation  by 
development;  and  while  Professor  Huxley's  argument  is 


328  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

good  against  the  "  creation  theory "  which  he  combats,  it 
is  the  very  foundation  of  another  creation  theory  more  in 
accord  with  the  Sacred  Scriptures.  This  parallelism  of 
Genesis  with  science  is  a  fact,  whatever  may  be  held  re- 
specting the  supernatural  origin  of  the  record. 

But  now  I  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  return  to 
Professor  Huxley's  starting  point  and  attempt  to  ascer- 
tain what  he  proposed  and  what  he  accomplished.  He 
set  out  with  a  promise  to  present  certain  "  untenable " 
theories,  and  to  argue  them  down.  One  of  these  is  what 
he  styled  the  "  creation  theory."  Now  creation  refers  to 
pi-imordial  origins.  That  which  appears  as  a  term  in  a 
series  of  physical  causation  may  be  said,  in  the  language 
of  science,  to  be  "  caused,"  but  it  cannot  be  said  to  be 
created.  If  evolution,  as  Professor  Huxley  maintains,  is 
a  self-operating  process  (however  begun),  then  any  new 
organism  springing  into  being  is  not  "  created " ;  it  is 
produced  by  evolution.  In  this  view  of  evolution  noth- 
ing in  the  course  of  natural  events  can  be  called  created; 
and  the  lecturer  argued  logically  from  his  assumptions. 
But  then,  if  nothing  in  the  course  of  natural  events  is 
created,  it  is  quite  clear  that  creation  refers  to  something 
not  in  the  course  of  natural  events.  That  there  must 
have  been  causal  activity  not  in  the  course  of  natural 
events  is  obvious  from  the  lecturer's  argument  that  the 
course  of  events  must  be  finite  and  not  eternal.  It  there- 
fore had  a  beginning,  and  some  adequate  power  caused 
that  beginning.  The  exertion  of  the  power  requisite  to 
install  a  course  of  natural  events  was  not  an  event  in 
the  course  of  natural  events.  It  was  an  event  incalcula- 
bly greater  than  any  natural  event.  It  was  a  primordial 
origination  not  depending  on  any  antecedent  term,  or 


HUXLEY   AND   EVOLUTION.  329 

uniform  succession,  or  secondary  or  evolutionary  cause. 
It  was  "  creation."  Why  could  not  Professor  Huxley  as- 
sume that  the  defenders  of  the  "  creation  theory "  were 
logical  enough  to  seek  creation  in  an  act  which  is  crea- 
tion, and  not  in  something  which  one  holding  his  view 
of  evolution  could  not  rationally  denominate  creation? 
And  then,  getting  his  eye  once  on  that  which  can  be  rec- 
ognized as  creation,  why  did  he  not  proceed  to  show  that 
no  such  creation  ever  took  place? 

Happily  the  lecturer  has  himself  supplied  the  answer 
to  this  question.  He  recognizes  the  certainty  that  the 
present  course  of  events  had  a  beginning;  and  he  admits 
that  we  have  no  authority  to  deny  that  there  was  "  a 
time  when  Nature  did  not  follow  a  fixed  order,"  and  (if 
we  understand  him)  "  when  external  agencies  did  inter- 
vene in  the  general  course  of  nature."  Well,  we  believe 
this  position  to  be  sound;  we  also  hold  that  an  "external 
agency "  acted  before  the  "  general  course  of  nature  was 
established";  and  it  must  be  this  "external  agency"  which 
stands  as  the  alternative  of  an  eternal  series  in  the  ex- 
planation of  the  existence  of  the  "  course  of  nature." 
This  relation  of  things  brings  to  view  a  real  creation. 
This  is  a  creation  which  Professor  Huxley  suggests  first 
by  implication  and  then  by  declaration.  Now  why,  I  ask 
again,  having  brought  the  conception  of  a  true  creation 
clearly  into  view,  did  he  not  proceed  to  "  demonstrate " 
that  belief  in  such  creation  is  an  "untenable  hypothesis"? 
Why  did  he  turn  from  that  which  he  had  shown  to  be 
a  fact,  answering  the  requirements  of  creation,  to  some- 
thing which,  on  his  own  assumptions,  could  not  be  viewed 
as  creation?  Did  the  sight  of  the  enemy  against  whom 
he  had  registered  an  oath  drive  his  courage  away? 


330  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

Let  the  lecturer  stand  up  and  testify  again.  "  My 
present  business  is  not  with  the  question  as  to  how  na- 
ture has  originated!  The  question  *  *  *  about  crea- 
tion is  a  philosophical  question,  and  one  which  cannot  be 
solved  or  even  approached  by  the  historical  method!" 
Well,  we  can  hardly  find  terms  in  which  to  characterize 
this  procedure.  The  lecturer  is  promising  to  demonstrate 
that  the  "  creation  theory  "  is  "  untenable,"  and  then,  first 
of  all,  coolly  tells  us  his  present  business  is  not  with  cre- 
ation, since  this  is  a  philosophical  question,  and  cannot 
be  even  approached  by  his  methods.  He  then  directs  his 
artillery  against  something  which  he  knows  and  admits 
is  not  creation,  and  at  the  end  turns  to  us  and  says:  "I 
told  you  I  should  demolish  the  'creation  theory,'  and  you 
see  how  handsomely  I  have  done  it!" 

Now,  I  demand  the  reader's  verdict  that  this  proceed- 
ing has  not  accomplished  what  the  distinguished  lecturer 
claimed;  that  it  is  a  proceeding  little  creditable  to  scien- 
tific discernment,  and  that  Professor  Huxley's  whole  treat- 
ment of  the  "  creation  theory  "  is  perverted,  disingenuous, 
illogical  and  farcical. 

2.  The  evidences  adduced  in  support  of  the  evolution  hy- 
pothesis are  not  demonstrative,  as  claimed.  We  think  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  has  been  carried  away  by  enthusiasm  in  af- 
firming evolution  inductively  "  demonstrated,"  or  in  any 
way  demonstrated.  Still  less  is  it  demonstrated  by  a  simple 
appeal  to  palseontological  evidence.  The  final  conclusion 
is  even  beyond  the  reach  of  inductive  evidence;  and  if  it 
were  not,  the  inductive  argument  could  never  amount  to 
a  demonstration.  The  data  of  induction  may  justify  the 
conclusion  that  gently  graduated  series  of  animals  have 
succeeded  each  other  in  past  time  ;  but  this  is  no  proof 


HUXLEY   AND   EVOLUTION.  331 

of  a  derivative  relationship  between  them.  The  only  pos- 
sible inductive  evidence  of  relationship  would  be  a  large 
number  of  examples  of  actual  transition  from  species  to 
species;  but  these,  taking  no  account  of  merely  inferential 
transitions,  are  facts  of  almost  unparalleled  infrequency, 
and  at  best  are  not  of  such  observed  frequency  as  to 
justify  a  generalization  covering  the  whole  field  of  life 
past  and  present. 


GROUNDS  AND  CONSEQUENCES  OF  EVOLUTION. 


TN  spite  of  the  objections  pi-esented  in  the  last  chapter 
-  to  the  breadth  of  Professor  Huxley's  claim,  we  are 
strongly  persuaded  that  the  doctrine  of  the  derivative  de- 
scent of  animal  and  vegetal  forms  represents  the  truth. 
We  discover  no  conflict  between  it  and  the  "  creation 
theory."  We  even  maintain  that  a  philosophic  scrutiny 
of  the  doctrine  will  disclose  the  activity  of  creative  power 
not  alone  in  the  region  of  "  external  agency,"  and  inau- 
gurative  efficiency,  but  in  every  stage  of  that  derivation 
which  guides  and  employs  biological  forces  with  reference 
to  preconceived  results. 

We  have  not  been  hasty  to  reach  this  conviction.  We 
have  pondered  many  a  difficulty  and  raised  many  a  query, 
but  we  have  seen  old  difficulties  vanishing  and  new  proofs 
perpetually  arising.  We  have  learned  more  of  the  won- 
derful resources  of  the  hypothesis  in  explaining  the  current 
and  the  exceptional  phenomena  of  life  and  organization.* 

*  Professor  Huxley  himself  has  undergone  a  similar  change  of  opinion.  In 
his  address  before  the  London  Geological  Society  for  1862  he  reviewed  the  palae- 
ontological  evidences  of  progressive  modification  of  types  and  concluded  with 
the  following  inquiry  and  answer:  "What,  then,  does  an  impartial  survey  of  the 
positively  ascertained  truths  of  palaeontology  testify  in  relation  to  the  common 
doctrines  of  progressive  modification  which  suppose  that  modification  to  have 
taken  place  by  a  necessary  progress  from  more  to  less  embryonic  forms,  or  from 
more  to  less  generalized  types,  within  the  limits  of  the  period  represented  by  the 
fossiliferous  rocks?  It  negatives  those  doctrines;  for  it  either  shows  us  no  evi- 
dence of  any  such  modification  or  demonstrates  it.  to  have  been  very  slight ;  and, 
as  to  the  nature  of  that  modification,  it  yields  no  evidence  whatsoever  that  the 
earlier  members  of  any  long-continued  group  were  more  generalized  in  structure 


GROUNDS   AND   CONSEQUENCES   OF    EVOLUTION.     333 

We  now  think  it  far  safer  to  accept  the  hypothesis  than 
to  reject  it.  If  it  is  safer  for  the  scientist  it  is  safer  for 
religion.  It  is  therefore  time  for  the  theologian  to  seek 
how  to  coordinate  his  essential  faith  with  the  impending 
finality  of  science. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  in  this  place  to  attempt  any 
presentation  of  the  facts  which,  in  our  judgment,  as  in 
that  of  the  majority  of  scientific  men,  afford  a  strong 
balance  of  evidence  in  support  of  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion through  a  material  continuity.  We  may,  however, 
indicate,  in  a  synoptical  way,  the  nature  of  the  argument. 

There  is  first,  what  may  be  called  the  morphological 
evidence,  or  evidence  furnished  by  structural  relationships 
and  family  resemblances  among  living  animals  and  plants. 
Everyone  understands  what  is  meant  by  saying  one  per- 
son bears  a  family  resemblance  to  another.  It  implies 
that  there  is  a  blood -connection  between  them.  In  some 
generation  more  or  less  remote  their  lineage  converges, 
and  the  same  parents  stand  as  common  ancestors  to  both 
persons.  Precisely  the  t'ame  thing  is  involved  in  the  state- 
ment that  the  dog,  the  wolf  and  the  jackal  have  a  family 
resemblance, —  or  the  cat,  the  lynx,  the  ounce  and  the 
panther.  The  resemblances  in  these  families  are  not  so 

than  the  later  ones." — Lay  Sermons  and  Addresses,  pp.  225,  226.  In  his  address 
before  the  same  society  in  1870  he  says:  "When  I  come  to  the  propositions 
touching  progressive  modification,  it  appears  to  me,  with  the  help  of  the  new  light 
which  has  broken  from  various  quarters,  that  there  is  much  ground  for  softening 
the  somewhat  Brntus-like  severity  with  which,  in  1862,  I  dealt  with  a  doctrine 
for  the  truth  of  which  I  should  have  been  glad  enough  to  find  a  good  foundation. 
*  *  *  When  we  turn  to  the  higher  vertebrata,  the  results  of  recent  investiga- 
tions, however  we  may  sift  and  criticise  them,  seem  to  me  to  leave  a  clear  bal- 
ance in  favor  of  the  doctrine  of  the  evolution  of  living  forms,  one  from  another." 
—Critiques  and  Addresses,  pp.  186, 187.  In  1870,  after  the  presentation  of  the 
geological  history  of  the  horse-type  to  a  New  York  audience,  he  concluded  by 
saying:  "That  is  what  I  mean,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  by  demonstrative  evidence 
of  evolution." — Popular  Science  Monthly,  Ivii,  296. 


334  SPARKS    FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

close  as  in  a  human  family;  but  they  are  of  the  same 
kind,  and  they  impress  themselves  on  us  in  the  same  way 
and  with  the  same  effect.  We  have  not  been  accustomed 
to  thinking  of  the  members  of  the  cat-family  as  having 
a  common  descent;  but  we  universally  recognize  a  close 
relation  of  structure,  form,  movements  and  instincts. 
Any  one  who  should  ask  himself  how  resemblances  of 
structure,  form,  movements  and  instincts  arise,  would  at 
once  perceive  that  they  probably  imply  common  ancestry. 
It  is  conceivable  that  separate  species  so  characterized 
should  have  had  separate  origins;  but  our  intelligence 
inclines  to  the  other  explanation.  The  reason  of  this  is 
the  fact  that  we  are  familiar  with  examples  of  more  in- 
timate family  resemblance  in  cases  of  known  consanguin- 
ity. The  children  of  John  Smith  are  quite  certain  to  re- 
semble their  parents,  and  may  reproduce  predominantly 
traits  of  their  grandparents  or  remoter  progenitors.  It  is 
not  needful  to  suggest  similar  illustrations  throughout 
the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms.  All  our  observation 
and  knowledge,  therefore,  point  to  consanguinity  as  the 
cause  of  all  family  resemblances;  and  we  have  no  knowl- 
edge of  any  other  cause  of  them.  There  is  no  ground  of 
hesitation  to  accept  consanguinity  as  the  true  explanation, 
save  our  preexisting  assumption  that  all  distinct  specific 
forms  are  independent  originations;  and  if  we  scrutinize 
this  assumption,  we  perceive  that  it  is  held  simply  be- 
cause it  has  been  taught  us  in  our  childhood.  That 
opinion  has  been  thought  demanded  by  our  intuition  and 
traditional  belief  concerning  the  relation  of  creator  and 
the  world;  but  when  it  is  shown  that  the  demands  of  this 
intuition  and  belief  are  better  satisfied  by  the  admission 
of  a  consanguineous  relation  among  animals,  it  would  seem 


GROUNDS  AND   CONSEQUENCES  OF   EVOLUTION.     335 

that  no  ground  whatever  remains  for  the  old  assumption 
that  each  species  is  a  separate  creation.  It  is  certainly 
safe,  on  the  grounds  of  natural  evidence,  and,  as  I  will 
attempt  to  show  in  the  sequel,  on  the  ground  of  religion, 
to  admit  that  family  resemblances  among  animals,  as 
among  mankind,  imply  community  of  descent. 

This  principle  achieved,  very  much  is  found  involved 
in  it.  Resemblances  of  the  same  nature  as  those  called 
family  resemblances  exist  between  groups  of  animals  and 
plants  quite  widely  differentiated  from  each  other.  We 
do  not  say  the  mouse  and  the  rhinoceros  possess  a  family 
resemblance,  but  it  is  demonstrable  that  they  do  possess 
profound  resemblances  aggregating  vastly  more  than  all 
their  differences.  Their  differences  relate  to  size,  cover- 
ing, habits  and  other  trivial  circumstances;  while  their 
resemblances  include  skeletal  frame-work,  circulatory,  di- 
gestive, respiratory  and  reproductive  organization,  as  well 
as  the  general  plan,  arrangement,  juxtaposition,  connec-. 
tion  and  coaction  of  these  systems,  and  all  the  minuter 
plan,  substance,  structure,  development  and  action  of 
bone,  nerves,  skin,  fibres,  membranes,  etc.  Finally,  both 
have  warm  blood,  respire  air,  and  nourish  their  young 
with  milk.  How  can  we  escape  the  conviction  that  these 
animals,  also,  owe  their  amazing  similarity  of  constitution 
to  their  common  descent  from  some  remote  ancestor? 

But,  if  we  compare  the  ox  and  the  alligator,  and  free 
our  minds  from  the  customary  impression  made  by  their 
external  contrasts,  we  shall  find  that  almost  the  same 
identical  catalogue  of  resemblances  must  be  made  out. 
The  alligator  is.  cold-blooded  (comparatively),  and  does 
not  nourish  its  young  with  milk.  Its  circulation  is  not 
completely  double,  though  the  rudiments  of  the  same  cir- 


336  SPARKS    FKOM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

culatoiy  structures  exist.  If  we  extend  the  comparison 
to  the  fish,  we  have  only  to  drop,  in  addition,  the  structure 
and  function  of  aerial  respiration,  and  all  the  rest  presents 
a  complete  correspondence  between  the  fish,  alligator  and 
ox.  Thus,  in  short,  the  entire  world  of  backboned  animals 
is  shown  to  be  united  by  profound  structural  and  func- 
tional relations. 

If  we  stray  from  our  starting  point  so  far  as  to  bring 
an  insect  or  a  worm  into  the  comparison,  we  find  still 
an  immense  preponderance  of  resemblances.  All  the  in- 
vertebrates, like  the  vertebrates,  possess  the  faculty  of 
voluntary  motion;  they  hunger  and  feed;  they  perceive; 
they  have  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  inanimate 
world;  they  breathe;  they  digest;  they  reproduce;  they 
provide  for,  protect  and  defend  their  young;  their  whole 
system  of  physiological  activity  and  coordinated  structure 
is  the  same;  they  have  mouth,  oesophagus,  stomach,  intes- 
•  tine,  liver;  they  digest  by  secretion  of  gastric  juice,  and 
imbibe  the  nutritive  products  of  digestion;  they  appropri- 
ate the  oxygen  of  the  air,  and  aerate  a  fluid  answering 
to  blood;  they  have  nerves  which  ramify  to  the  various 
organs;  they  move  by  means  of  contractile  muscular  fibers; 
they  rest  from  their  labors  at  certain  intervals,  and  sleep. 
Certainly,  if  a  genetic  relationship  unites  the  different 
classes  of  vertebrates,  it  must  also  embrace  the  other  ani- 
mals which  possess  such  a  preponderance  of  resemblances 
with  the  vertebrates. 

All  classification  is  based  on  these  resemblances.  Classi- 
fication, if  true  and  correct,  is  therefore  nothing  more 
than  the  building  of  a  genealogical  tree. 

There  are  numerous  independent  features  of  the  mor- 
phological evidence.  The  heart  of  the  warm-blooded  verte- 


GROUNDS   AND   CONSEQUENCES   OF    EVOLUTION.     337 

brate  is  divided  by  a  septum  into  two  ventricles.  In  the 
alligator  the  rudiment  of  a  septum  exists,  as  if  either  it 
were  in  a  stage  of  development  from  the  condition  of  the 
fish,  or  else  of  disappearance  from  the  condition  of  the 
mammal  or  bird.  The  splint-bones  of  the  horse's  foot 
are,  beyond  all  question,  the  rudiments  of  additional  dig- 
its,—  either  digits  in  process  of  development,  in  the  course 
of  generations,  or  digits  in  process  of  disappearance.  So 
the  bird  has  a  rudimentary  thumb  attached  to  the  angle 
of  its  wing.  Of  the  same  nature  is  the  stumpy  caudal 
extremity  of  the  bii'd's  spinal  column,  the  styloid  pro- 
longation of  that  of  the  frog,  or  even  the  os  coccygis  of 
the  human  subject.  Here,  as  in  many  other  instances,  are 
structures  which  are  rudimental,  and  perform  no  function, 
or  only  a  greatly  modified  function,  in  the  economy  of  the 
animal;  while  they  are  manifestly  the  same  morphological 
elements  or  combinations  as  in  other  animals  execute 
important  and  often  essential  functions.  What  do  they 
mean?  On  the  hypothesis  of  independent  specific  crea- 
tions, it  is  necessary  to  suppose  the  Creator  has  introduced 
again  and  again  certain  parts  which  are  functionally  use- 
less. On  the  principle  that  structures  are  adapted  to 
ends,  how  are  structures  without  an  end  to  be  brought 
under  the  rule  of  special  creation?  But  now,  if  the 
theory  of  common  genetic  descent  is  admissible,  all  mys- 
tery vanishes.  With  progressive  changes  in  the  physical 
surroundings  and  necessities  of  the  line  of  generations, 
some  structures  became  more  important,  more  exercised, 
and  more  developed,  while  others  became  less  important, 
less  exercised,  and  less  developed;  and  some  finally  shrank 
to  mere  non-functional  rudiments  of  their  former  selves. 
Thus  the  world  of  contemporaneous  existence  affords 


338  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

ground  for  the  inference  that  all  existing  animals  are 
bound  in  a  genetic  system  by  the  bonds  of  universal 
cousinship.  It  is  of  no  import  that  we  revolt  at  the 
thought.  Perhaps  the  revulsion  has  no  more  rational 
foundation  than  taboo  among  savages.  Perhaps  the  rela- 
tionship, on  reflection,  will  enhance  to  a  sublime  degree 
our  comprehension  of  the  system  of  organic  life,  and  of 
the  unity  of  all  the  world  under  the  method  of  one 
intelligence.  Perhaps  it  will  appear  that  man's  structure 
was  not  embraced  in  the  scheme  of  derivative  origins. 
Perhaps,  if  it  was  so  embraced,  he  will  be  found  to  possess 
some  distinct  elements  in  his  psychic  nature  which  cannot 
be  traced  to  lower  existences.  In  any  event,  having  felt 
the  force  of  the  evidence,  it  is  manly  to  stand  by  it,  and 
let  the  unity  of  truth  determine  the  adjustment  of  the 
consequences. 

We  have,  in  the  second  place,  what  may  be  styled  the 
palceontological  evidence.  The  discovered  records  of  extinct 
life  upon  the  earth,  it  must  be  admitted,  are  extremely 
defective,  and  offer  many  instances  which,  in  the  present 
state  of  our  knowledge,  appear  to  conflict  with  the  doctrine 
of  descent,  though  there  are  no  facts  irreconcilable  with 
it.  That  the  record  is  incomplete,  and  must  always  remain 
incomplete,  is  obvious  from  a  few  considerations.  The 
calcareous  secretions  of  marine  animals  are  the  principal 
relics  preserved.  All  animals  without  hard  secretions 
have  perished.  The  greater  part  of  the  hard  secretions 
of  animals  has  been  destroyed  by  the  action  of  sea-water 
and  other  agencies.  Nothing  of  the  terrestrial  popula- 
tions of  the  globe  has  been  preserved  except  as  chance 
transported  them  into  bodies  of  water  to  be  buried  be- 
neath their  sediments.  In  the  oldest  rocks,  moreover, 


GROUNDS   AND    CONSEQUENCES   OF   EVOLUTION.     339 

metamorphic  action  has  caused  the  disappearance  of  all 
species  of  fossils.  Further,  the  fossiliferous  rocks  them- 
selves have  been  but  very  partially  explored.  No  region 
or  locality  has  been  exhausted,  while  the  greater  part  of 
the  earth  remains  totally  uninvestigated.  As  a  conse- 
quence of  these  imperfections  in  the  data,  it  should  be 
anticipated  that  the  record  would  present  many  impassable 
gaps  and  apparent  anomalies. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  palaeontology  has  been  able  to  es- 
tablish the  following  principles: 

1.  There  has  been  a  gradual  improvement  in  the  struct- 
ural rank  of  the  leading  types  of  animals  as  the  history 
advanced  from  age  to  age. 

2.  The   earlier   condition  of  each   animal   type  was  a 
comprehensive  one,  in  which  certain  characteristics  of  two 
or   more   later   families    or    orders    were    united    in    one 
species. 

3.  The  tendency  of  change  has  been  toward  the  reso- 
lution of  comprehensive  types,  so  that   the   characteristics 
of  each  separate  familv  or  order  should  finally  be  embodied 
in  separate  species. 

4.  While   this  process  of  resolution  of  comprehensive 
types   has   been  in  progress,  still    further  differentiations 
and   specializations,   both    in   the   comprehensive    and   the 
resolved  forms,  have  taken  place. 

5.  The  progress  of  discovery  has  gone  so  far  that  we 
have   established   not   only  a   steady   progression   upward 
in  the  animal  series  at  large,  but  also  in  several  separate 
ramifications  of  the  series. 

6.  Thus  we  trace  tolerably  continuous  lines  of  succes- 
sion,    (a)    From    typical    land    saurians   upward   through 
Pterosaurs,   Archceopteryx    and    Hesperornis    to    Carinate 


340  SPARKS   FROM   A    GEOLOGISTS   HAMMER. 

Birds  ;  (b)  From  typical  land  saurians  upward  through 
Iguanodon,  Hadrosaurus,  Cotnpsognathus  and  Brontozoilm 
to  Struthious  Birds  ;  though  in  both  these  series  (only 
given  in  part)  the  types  structurally  consecutive  are  not 
always  chronologically  ranged  in  the  same  order;  (c)  The 
Camel  series,  ranging  from  Poebr  other  him  through  Prolo- 
labis,  Procamelus,  Pliauchenia  and  Camelus  to  Auchenia; 
(d)  The  Rhinoceros  series,  ranging  from  Trilopus  through 
Ccenopus  Aphelops  and  Ceratorhinus  to  Rhinoceros;  (e)  The 
Horse  series,  ranging  from  Eohippus,  through  Orohippus, 
Epihippus,  Mesohippus,  Miohipptis,  Protohippus,  Pliohippus 
to  Equus, —  all  these  chronologically  as  well  as  systemat- 
ically arranged.  Also  several  other  series  quite  fully 
made  out,  such  as  those  leading  to  the  Elephant,  the  Hog, 
the  Deer  and  the  Ox. 

7.  The  tendency  of  fresh  discovery  is  continually  to 
fill  up  preexisting  gaps.  Serial  successions  are  being 
completed  from  year  to  year;  connecting  links  are  com- 
ing to  light;  terms  once  thought  misplaced  are  found, 
through  new  discoveries,  to  be  in  proper  successional 
order. 

In  this  state  of  the  facts  it  is  perfectly  legitimate  to 
forecast  results.  Induction  has  established  a  law  from 
which  we  may  deduce  anticipated  results.  We  may  reason 
then  from  what  we  expect  to  know,  as  well  as  from  what 
we  know. 

We  anticipate,  accordingly,  that  in  the  course  of  time 
it  will  be  shown  that  our  earth  has  been  the  abode  of 
complete  successions  of  animal  types,  leading  backward 
from  each  of  our  modern  generic  or  family  groups,  by 
ever  converging  lines,  toward  ancestral  centers;  and  from 
these  centers,  other  lines  pointing  toward  some  common 


GROUNDS  AND   CONSEQUENCES  OF  EVOLUTION.     34l 

center  in  the  remoter  past.  We  expect  to  see  the  con- 
secutive terms  in  these  various  series  graduating  structu- 
rally into  each  other,  and  every  characteristic  conformed 
and  arranged  as  if  there  had  been  a  gradual  descent  of 
all  our  modern  mammals,  along  a  set  of  diverging  lines 
from  some  primitive,  plantigrade,  five-toed  ancestor. 

This  is  the  generalization  which  the  known  facts  and 
the  known  tenor  of  the  facts  authorize  us  to  draw.  But 
when  we  shall  have  become  convinced  of  the  existence  of 
such  a  complete  series  of  successional  lines,  we  shall  not 
yet  have  the  demonstration  of  a  genealogical  connection 
between  any  two  terms  in  any  series.  It  will  still  be 
supposable,  as  stated  in  a  previous  article,  that  each  term 
is  a  separate  origination.  We  shall  not  yet  have  the 
demonstration  that  one  specific  or  generic  type  has  ever 
passed  by  modification,  in  the  course  of  generations,  into 
another  specific  or  generic  type.  We  shall  have  no 
demonstration  that  it  is  in  the  economy  and  plan  of  na- 
ture to  permit  specific  transmutations.  We  may  fairly 
argue  that  the  facts  accord  with  the  theory  of  derivation, 
and  are  best  explained  by  that  theory,  and  lend  it  a  high 
degree  of  probability  ;  but  we  should  feel  our  confidence 
materially  strengthened  if  we  could  detect  nature  in  the 
act  of  effecting  a  transition  from  species  to  species. 

We  have  therefore,  in  the  third  place,  the  variational 
evidence.  This  consists  of  a  body  of  facts  tending  to  show 
that  a  species  is  not  a  primordial  and  permanent  organic 
form,  but  only  the  existing  phase  presented  by  a  line  of 
progressive  changes.  Much  light  has  been  thrown  upon 
this  subject  within  a  few  years.  Some  cases  of  transmu- 
tation have  been  actually  traced,  and  evidence  has  been 
gained  that  the  gradational  series  connecting  species  of 


342  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST^   HAMMER. 

animals  and  plants,  long  regarded  distinct,  are  in  truth 
only  transitional  states  of  one  of  these  species  in  its 
passage  over  to  the  other.  More  properly,  intermediate 
states  which  have  arisen  simultaneously  with  the  extreme 
states.  In  many  cases  the  varied  states  seem  to  sustain 
relations  to  geographical  position.  Thus  among  plants, 
peculiarities  of  situation  have  given  us  varieties  of  the 
Juniper,  Paper  Birch,  Chestnut  Oak,  Hackberry,  Beach 
Plum,  Black  Thorn,  June  Berry,  Wild  Rose,  etc.  Among 
animals,  extensive  chorographical  variations  have  been 
noted  among  Echinoderns,  by  L.  Agassiz,  A.  Agassiz  and 
E.  Haeckel ;  among  Molluscs,  by  Cooper,  Barber,  Weatherby, 
Lewis  and  others  ;  among  insects,  by  Packard,  Edwards 
and  Walsh ;  among  fishes,  by  Jordan,  Putnam  and  L. 
Agassiz  ;  among  birds,  by  Baird,  Allen,  Ridgeway  and 
Coues;  among  mammals,  by  Baird,  Allen,  Coues  and  Yar- 
row. In  other  cases  the  variations  seem  to  be  due  to 
marked  changes  in  the  physical  environment  of  the  ani- 
mal. In  a  few  cases  it  now  appears  that  hybridity  has 
resulted  in  the  establishment  of  intermediate  and  other- 
wise variant  forms.* 

Among  fossil  Brachiopods  the  variations  and  connect- 
ing links  are  so  numerous  as  to  give  rise  to  much  per- 

*  For  hybrids  among  trees  consult  Gray,  Man.  Bot.,  N.  U.  8. ;  A.  de  Candolle, 
Treatise  on  Oaks ;  Naudin,  Hybridity  in  the  Vegetable  Kingdom.  But  compare 
Naudin,  on  the  nature  of  heredity  and  variability  in  plants,  in  Comptes  Rendus, 
Sept.  27  and  Oct.  4,  1875,  and  A.  Gray,  in  Amer.  Jour.  ScL,  III,  xi,  153.  On  fer- 
tile hybrids  of  common  and  Chinese  geese,  sec  Youmans,  in  Quatrefages,  Nat. 
Hist,  of  Man,  143;  C.  Darwin,  Nature,  xxi,  207,  Jaa  1, 1880;  Kosmos,  April  1880, 
77.  On  fertile  hybrids  of  the  mallard  and  muscovy  ducks,  see  T.  M.  Brewer, 
Proc.  Boston  Soc.  Nat.  Hist.,  Jan.  21, 1874.  On  fertile  hybrids  of  hare  and  rab- 
bit, see  Gindre,  Bull,  de  la  Soc.  imp.  Zodl.  d' Acclimation,  1870,  659-67.  On  fertile 
hybrids  of  goat  and  steinbock,  see  Von  Tscluidi,  Thierleben  der  Alpenwelt,  555; 
C.  Vogt,  Kdhterq'aube  u  IVissenscJiaft,  66.  On  fertile  hybrids  of  fox  and  dog, 
see  Von  Tschudi,  ib.  413;  C.  Vogt,  id.  67.  On  fertile  hybrids  of  wolf  and  dog,  see 
C.  Vogt  ib.  60,  seq. 


GROUNDS   AND  CONSEQUENCES   OF   EVOLUTION.     343 

plexity  and  embarrassing  synonymy.  Mr.  Meek  described 
a  common  Cincinnati  fossil  as  Orthis  biforata  with  four 
varieties.*  Professor  Nicholson  has  taken  our  old  CTicetetes 
lycoperdon,  a  common  coral  of  the  Lower  Silurian  rocks, 
and  enumerated  no  less  than  twenty-five  distinct  variations.! 
Spirifera  disjuncta  is  a  brachiopod  abundant  in  Chau- 
tauqua  county,  New  York,  and  neighboring  regions,  and 
of  this  Professor  Hall  has  figured  no  less  than  eighteen 
varieties.^  Of  Atnjpa  reticularis  he  gives  us,  similai-ly, 
sixteen  varieties.§  These  technical  names  are  edifying  to 
the  general  reader  only  so  far  as  they  demonstrate  that 
great  variability  has  existed  in  the  history  of  extinct 
forms,  whether  we  attribute  this  to  hybridity,  geograph- 
ical position  or  other  causes,  and  furnish  additions  to  the 
stock  of  evidence  that  it  is  the  economy  of  nature  to 
effect  transmutations  of  species.  The  sum  total  of  the 
variational  evidence  shows  us  that  the  derivative  origin 
of  types  in  palaeontological  history  is  a  natural  possi- 
bility. We  are  not  in  conflict  with  nature,  therefore,  in 
inferring  that  the  terms  of  the  palaeontological  series  sus- 
tain a  consanguineous  relation. 

But  in  the  fourth  place  we  have  the  embryological 
evidence.  This  seems  to  us  to  bring  all  the  other  evidence 
to  a  focus  and  complete  the  conviction  that  the  deriva- 
tive .origin  of  species  is  a  fact.  It  affords  not  only  a 
picture  of  the  succession  of  extinct  forms,  but  it  is  a 
picture  in  which  the  successive  terms  are  known  to  be 

*  Meek,  Palaeontology  of  Ohio,  pi.  x.  Compare  Hall,  Paleontology  of  New 
York,  i,  133,  pi.  xxxii  D. 

tH.  A.  Nicholson,  Paleontology  of  Ohio,  ii. 

t  J.  Hall,  Paleontology  of  New  York,  iv,  pi.  xli,  xliii. 

§  J.  Hall,  Palaeontology  of  New  York,  pi.  li-liii.  Compare  Whitfield,  XIX 
Rep.  N.  Y.  Regents. 


344  SPAKKS   FEOM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

derivatively  related  to  each  other.  Trace  any  higher  ver- 
tebrate—  man  himself,  if  you  will  —  from  a  primitive 
condition  in  the  ovum.  How  marvelous,  how  awe-inspir- 
ing is  the  unfolding!  We  have  first  the  yolk,  with  its 
"  germinative  vesicle  "  and  "  germinative  dot."  Then  both 
undergo  a  succession  of  segmentations  until  there  results 
a  crowded  mass  of  cells  (''  morula"  or  "mulberry"  stage). 
Some  of  these  dissolve,  and  the  remainder  arrange  them- 
selves as  a  hollow  spheroid  consisting  of  a  single  layer 
of  cells  ("planula"  stage).  The  single  layer  becomes 
double,  with  an  opening  at  one  pole  of  the  spheroid  ("  gas- 
trula "  stage) ;  and  now  appears  a  thickening  on  one  side, 
in  the  midst  of  which  is  disclosed  the  "  primitive  furrow," 
afterward  to  be  inclosed  and  become  the  spinal  marrow. 
An  enlargement  is  seen  at  one  extremity;  this  is  the 
forming  brain;  and  the  various  segments  of  the  bi'ain 
appear  as  gentle  swellings.  At  the  opposite  extremity 
is  a  tail.  Transverse  marks  in  the  middle  of  the  neural 
furrow  indicate  the  approaching  vertebral  structures;  while 
certain  segments  along  the  place  of  the  neck  are  seen  to 
receive  blood-vessels  from  the  provisional  heart,  and  to 
sustain  completely  all  the  structural  relations  of  the 
branchial  or  gill  arches  in  the  type  of  fishes.  Arms  and 
legs  bud  out, —  as  yet  without  digits,  or  they  may  be 
viewed  as  unidigitate,  like  the  limbs  of  Lepidosiren. 
Stumpy  digits  afterward  appear,  like  those  of  the  so- 
called  Cheirothcriinn  of  Triassic  times.  The  face  goes  by 
degrees  through  the  conditions  seen  in  low  sharks,  am- 
phibians and  higher  vertebrates.  Step  by  step  the  in- 
ternal structures  advance  toward  their  destined  forms, 
functions  and  positions.  Thus,  by  a  process  of  repeated 


GROUNDS  AND   CONSEQUENCES  OF   EVOLUTION.     345 

differentiations,  the  complications  and  special  adaptations 
of  the  higher  vertebrate  come  into  existence. 

But  what  of  all  this?  Very  much  indeed.  This  mar- 
velous evolution  which  we  see  the  higher  vertebrate  pass 
through  is  absolutely  identical  with  the  embryonic  history 
of  every  other  animal  down  to  a  certain  point  in  its  de- 
velopment. Every  animal  begins  in  the  egg,  and  the  eggs 
of  all  animals  (we  exclude  shell  and  other  accessories)  are 
completely  undistinguishable  in  structure.  Every  animal, 
except  some  of  the  very  lowest,  presents  us,  in  its  de- 
velopment, the  morula  stage.  Every  animal,  with  a  few 
additional  exceptions,  passes  also  through  the  planula  and 
the  gastrula  stages.  Thus  every  vertebrated  animal  pre- 
sents us  the  same  primitive  furrow,  the  same  cerebral 
enlargements,  the  same  segmentation,  the  same  caudal 
continuation,  the  same  vascular  area,  the  same  one-cham- 
bered heart,  the  same  branchial  arches  and  blood-vessels, 
the  same  progressive  changes  in  the  development  of  the 
brain,  the  same  mode  of  formation  of  the  enteric  and 
abdominal  cavities,  the  same  beginnings  of  the  formation 
of  the  face.  This  identity  in  embryonic  histories  may  be 
unexpected;  it  may  be  amazing;  it  may  be  humiliating; 
but  there  is  nothing  better  established  in  science.* 

This  is  not  all.  There  are  living  creatures  which  rep- 
resent these  successive  stages  of  embryonic  development. 
There  are  some  so  low  that  they  never  pass  beyond  the 

*  The  reader  will  find  the  subject  discussed  in  E.  Haeckel's  Naturliche  Schopf- 
ungsgeschichte,  xi  Vortrag,  and  Anthropogenie,  xiii-xix  Vortrage  (translated 
and  republished  in  New  York  as  Natural  History  of  Creation  and  The  Origin  of 
Man);  A.  KSlliker,  Entwickelungsgeschichte  des  Menschen  u.der  hoheren  Thiere, 
2d  ed.,  Leipzig,  1876;  P.  M.  Balfour,  A  treatise  on  Comparative  Embryology, 
London,  1880.  A  general  synopsis  in  A.  S.  Packard's  Life-histories  of  Animals, 
including  Man,  New  York,  1876;  and  a  particular  account  of  the  history  of  the 
chick,  in  M.  Foster  and  F.  M.  Balfour,  The  Elements  of  Embryology,  Part  I. 


346  SPAEKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

structure  of  the  egg, —  simple  cells,  often,  like  some  eggs, 
capable  of  movement  by  means  of  prolongations  of  their 
substance.  There  are  some  which  attain  to  the  morula 
condition,  and  then  are  adult.  Others  pass  to  the  planula 
stage,  and  still  others  to  the  gastrula.  Certain  worms 
(Turbellaria)  represent  a  succeeding  stage,  as  the  Ascid- 
ians  are  believed  to  picture  a  still  later  one.  Thus  on, 
from  the  lancelet  and  the  lampreys  to  the  sharks,  Am- 
phibians, Monotremes,  Marsupials,  and  Lemurs  at  the 
bottom  of  the  four-handed  animals,  we  discover  living 
forms  which  stand  forth  in  the  museum  of  Nature  as 
pictures  of  the  embryonic  stages  of  the  highest  vertebrate. 

Finally,  the  embryonic  series  finds  its  parallel  not  only 
in  the  embryonic  history  of  other  animals,  and  in  the 
adult  forms  of  animals  presented  as  we  range  up  and 
down  the  scale  of  life,  but  the  succession  of  extinct  types, 
as  far  as  we  have  read  it,  presents  us  with  another  par- 
allel. 

Now,  while  we  know  the  stages  of  the  embryonic  series 
to  stand  derivatively  related,  it  seems  reasonable  to  infer 
that  the  corresponding  forms  in  the  realms  of  actual  and 
extinct  life  are  also  derivatively  related.  It  would  appear, 
at  first  view,  that  the  nature  of  the  derivation  must  be 
fundamentally  different  in  the  two  cases;  but  even  this 
does  not  impair  the  meaning  of  the  fact  that,  in  both 
cases,  we  should  have  a  material  continuity  from  form  to 
form^  and  this  is  all  which  evolution  requires.  On  re- 
flection, however,  the  mode  of  the  continuity  in  the  case 
of  the  embryo  appears  substantially  identical  with  the 
assumed  mode  of  continuity  in  the  succession  of  geolog- 
ical types.  Ordinary  embryonic  development  proceeds 
through  the  multiplication  and  specialization  of  cells 


GROUNDS  AND  CONSEQUENCES  OP  EVOLUTION.    347 

stimulated  by  the  nutritive  plasma  in  which  they  are 
bathed.  Generative  or  genealogical  development  begins 
in  the  multiplication  and  specialization  of  a  cell  stimulated 
by  contact  with  a  cell  specialized  sperm atically  in  the 
same  individual  or  in  an  individual  sexually  different. 
Propagation,  moreover,  may  be  viewed  as  simply  a  mode 
of  perpetuating  or  renewing  an  individual  which  is  bisexual, 
either  monoeciouely,  as  in  lower  animals  and  most  plants, 
or  dioeciously,  as  in  most  animals  and  certain  plants.  The 
progress  noted  in  the  succession  of  extinct  forms  is  assumed 
to  have  resulted  from  some  influence  exerted  upon  embryos 
in  the  progress  of  their  development.  The  development 
accelerated  or  prolonged  would  end  in  an  organism  more 
advanced.  This  would  be  a  new  specific  form  appearing 
as  a  stage  of  embryonic  history;  and  though  many  gen- 
erations may  have  intervened  while  the  embryo  was  arriv- 
ing at  this  new  specific  type,  we  may  view  these  genera- 
tions as  simply  nature's  expedient  to  continue  the  being 
in  existence  in  spite  of  the  wastes  of  physical  life.  So 
what  seems  at  first  a  mere  analogy  resolves  itself  into  a 
profound  biological  identity. 

To  sum.  up,  we  have,  it  appears,  an  identical  order  of 
succession  of  organic  forms  three  times  repeated.  The 
first  appears  in  the  successive  transformations  of  the  indi- 
vidual being  before  it  reaches  maturity.  This  succession 
is  ontogenetic  and  rapid.  It  is  repeated  for  every  individual 
which  comes  to  maturity.  The  second  succession  is  pre- 
sented in  the  geological  history  of  extinct  life.  It  is  not 
yet  observed  to  be  parallel  in  all  details,  but  the  progress 
of  discovery  tends  continually  to  complete  the  parallel. 
This  succession  is  palceontological  and  slow.  The  third 
succession  is  presented  by  the  serial  order  of  living  ani- 


348  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

mals  according  to  rank.  All  the  terms  of  the  series  are 
coexistent.  This  succession  is  taxonomic  and  simultaneous. 
The  first  succession  represents  the  grand  march  of  the 
animal  kingdom  as  a  whole;  it  is  executed  but  once.  The 
second  succession  is  an  epitome  of  this,  continually  re- 
hearsed in  the  life  march  of  individuals.  The  third  succes- 
sion is  one  without  relation  to  time  or  place;  it  is  ideal; 
it  is  a  survival  of  traditions  of  the  past,  and  condenses 
the  evolutions  of  ages  into  one  present  and  perpetual 
expression.  PAL^EONTOLOGICAL  history  exhibits  a  series  in 
which  the  continued  interpolation  of  newly  discovered 
terms  produces  the  suspicion  of  a  perfectly  graduated  and 
genetic  line.  It  suggests  material  continuity  as  a  possi- 
bility and  a  promise.  MORPHOLOGICAL  relations  present  such 
continuity  as  something  which,  within  the  range  of  obser- 
vation, is  a  fact,  and  beyond  the  range  of  observation  is 
a  probability.  The  phenomena  of  VARIABILITY  reveal  a  dis- 
position and  an  aptitude  on  the  part  of  nature  to  fulfill 
the  "  promise,"  and  make  the  "  probability "  completely  a 
"  fact."  The  data  of  EMBRYOLOGY  demonstrate  that  the  de- 
rivative relation  of  such  terms  as  palaeontology  presents 
is  an  ever-repeated  actuality.  Now,  with  the  work  com- 
pleted in  the  ontogenetic  epitome,  and  with  this  proof 
of  nature's  method,  and  the  variational  proof  of  nature's 
method  and  means,  it  is  little  stretch  of  belief  to  grant 
that  nature  pursued  the  method  of  derivative  originations 
during  the  whole  period  of  palaeontological  history. 

Now  suppose  it  granted:  (1)  That  geological  history 
presents  us  universally,  series  of  nicely  graduated  forms; 
(2)  That  these  forms  are  all  genetically  related  to  each 
other,  and  that  consequently  all  living  forms  ai-e  genetic- 
ally connected.  We  have  thus  come  to  a  knowledge  of 


GROUNDS    AND    CONSEQUENCES   OF    EVOLUTION.     349 

certain  facts.  We  have  only  reached  the  determination 
of  a  certain  order  of  succession,  and  a  certain  derivative 
relation.  We  have  not  yet  discovered  the  agencies  through 
which  the  derivation  is  effected,  and  the  conditions  under 
which  those  agencies  are  operative.  Nor  have  we  dis- 
covered the  efficiency  which  operates  the  agencies,  nor  the 
mode  of  its  activity,  nor  the  reason  why  all  these  things 
are  brought  to  pass  as  they  are.  In  brief,  after  we  have 
discovered  ivhat  takes  place,  it  remains  to  learn  through 
what  it  takes  place,  and  by  what  it  takes  place,  and  for 
what  it  takes  place.  These  are  the  ulterior  questions 
which  were  not  touched  by  Professor  Huxley  in  his  lect- 
ures. He  did  not  completely  ignore  them,  but  he  waived 
them.* 

Now,  while  the  present  occasion  is  not  one  for  discuss- 
ing these  ulterior  questions,  it  may  be  profitable  to  bring 
them  into  view  for  the  purpose  of  enabling  the  reader 
to  appreciate  the  vast  breadth  of  the  theme,  and  the  sepa- 
rate subdivisions  which  must  be  clearly  recognized  in 
forming  judgments  about  it. 

I.  What  are  the  Physical  and  Physiological  Conditions 
(mediate  or  scientific  causes)  of  Variative  Derivation? 

It  is  in  the  domain  covered  by  this  question  that  the 
various  theories  of  derivation  have  sprung  up.  At  the  out- 
set a  fundamental  discrimination  must  be  made.  There 
are  the  organic  activities  appropriating  material  within 

*  He  says :  "  The  cause  of  that  production  of  variations  is  a  matter  not  at  all 
properly  understood  at  present.  Whether  it  depends  upon  some  intricate  ma- 
chinery—if I  may  use  the  phrase  — of  the  animal  form  itself,  or  whether  it 
arises  through  the  influence  of  conditions  upon  that  form  is  not  certain,  and  the 
question  may  for  the  present  be  left  open."  Pop.  Set.  Monthly,  No.  Ivi,  210. 
"  My  present  business  is  not  with  the  question  as  to  houo  nature  has  originated, 
—  as  to  the  causes  which  have  lea  to  her  origination."  —  Ib.  Iv,  51.  Our  present 
inquiry  is  not  why  the  objects  which  constitute  nature  came  into  existence,  but 
when  they  came  into  existence,  and  in  what  order. —  Ib.  Iv,  51. 


350  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

reach,  and  building  the  organism  according  to  a  certain 
pattern;  and  there  are  the  external  conditions  in  the 
presence  of  which  these  activities  are  carried  on.  What- 
ever influence  the  environment  may  exert,  it  can  obvi- 
ously be  no  more  than  a  conditioning  influence,  since 
whatever  is  done  with  the  organic  structure  is  done  in 
the  organism  and  through  physiological  processes  and  in- 
strumentalities. Now,  whatever  may  be  the  nature  of 
the  forces  acting  within,  it  is  conceivable  that  they  may 
be  conditioned  or  determined  in  their  activity  by  the 
quality  and  quantity  of  food,  water,  air,  warmth  and  rest. 
These  belong  to  the  environment.  Variations  in  the  sup- 
ply of  these  requisites  depend  on  two  classes  of  influences. 
These  are  the  natural  influences  arising  from  daily,  sea- 
sonal, periodical  and  secular  changes  in  the  supplies 
and  from  the  movements  and  migrations  of  the  animal. 
These  variable  factors  have  been  taken  into  the  account  by 
the  older  transmutationists,  Lamarck  and  St.  Hilaire,  and 
by  the  later  Darwinists.  Then  there  are  the  artificial 
influences  (as  we  may  style  them)  arising  from  the  con- 
tests of  individuals  for  the  possession  of  the  requisites  of 
life.  They  might  be  styled  the  volitional  conditions,  in 
distinction  from  the  non-volitional  or  cosmical  conditions. 
These  contests  constitute  the  "struggle  for  existence," 
which  is  the  peculiar  feature  of  Darwinian  derivative 
doctrine.  The  outcome  of  this  struggle  is  always  the 
"  survival  of  the  fittest,"  and  a  concomitant  tendency  of 
the  specific  type  to  improve.  It  is  thus  that  the  envi- 
ronment of  cosmical  or  volitional  concomitants  may  deter- 
mine, promote  or  limit  the  organic  activities  of  animals 
that  have  come  into  the  world  and  entered  upon  the 
struggle  for  self  support.  Undoubtedly  the  outcome  of 


GBOUNDS  AND   CONSEQUENCES  OF   EVOLUTION.     351 

the  Darwinian  principle  is  of  the  nature  claimed.  We 
can  only  deny  that  it  is  a  full  and  adequate  explanation 
of  all  the  facts. 

But  the  most  impressible  period  of  life  is  the  embry- 
onic. To  what  an  extent  must  requisite  supplies  during 
ovarian  and  uterine  existence  condition  the  physiological 
activities  which  are  making  the  being  what  it  is  to  be. 
It  is  certainly  quite  conceivable  that  favorable  conditions 
should  so  accelerate  embryonic  development  that  higher 
results  should  be  reached  at  full  term,  or  that  unfavora- 
ble conditions  should  so  retard  development  that  lower 
results  should  be  reached.  The  influence  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  upon  the  development  of  the  embryo  has 
not  been  entirely  overlooked  by  Darwin,  but  acceleration 
or  retardation  as  the  consequence  of  a  struggle  maintained 
by  the  parent  in  the  outer  world  is  a  conception  which 
characterizes  the  derivative  theories  of  Hyatt  and  Cope. 
It  really  seems  to  have  struck  upon  a  more  fundamental 
and  productive  condition  of  derivative  variation  than  the 
struggle  for  existence.  The  latter  is  a  remoter  condition, 
while  the  former  exists  close  by  the  seat  of  operation 
of  efficient  cause.  It  accounts  for  regress  as  well  as 
progress.  It  addresses  itself  to  the  tissue-making  forces 
at  the  time  when  the  foundations  of  the  tissues  are  being 
laid  and  not  when  the  organic  structure  has  been  already 
cast  in  its  mould. 

But  now,  independently  of  all  external  conditions,  it 
is  conceivable  that  the  organism  may  be  the  subject  of 
an  inherent  and  unremitting  nisus, —  a  tendency,  in  spite 
of  obstacles,  to  accomplish  certain  results,  and  attain  to 
fitter  conditions.  It  is  our  own  conviction  that  here  lies 
the  secret  force  which  works  out  the  multifarious  phe- 


352  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

noraena  of  organic  life.  Such  a  nisus  was  appealed  to 
by  Lamarck;  and  Professor  Huxley  has  more  than  once 
hinted  the  probability  that  it  is  a -potent  factor  in  vital 
phenomena.  But  it  will  be  remarked  that  the  admission 
of  such  a  nisus  is  not  a  final  explanation.  An  inherent 
nisus  is  causal,  but  not  ultimately  causal,  unless  we  can 
attribute  to  it  all  the  characteristics  which  manifestly 
belong  to  the  efficiency  which  produces  results  in  the 
organism. 

When  the  question  of  fact  has  been  answered  ;  when 
the  conditions  under  which  the  fact  arises  have  been  ascer- 
tained, and  the  physical  or  physiological  actions  in  the 
organism  which,  under  the  conditions,  work  oat  the  fact 
have  also  been  determined,  this  is  as  far  as  natural  science 
can  go.  The  pure  scientist  may  not  care  to  extend  his 
inquiries  farther.  But  assuredly  this  is  not  the  ultimate 
limit  of  rational  inquiry.  The  human  mind,  in  the  com- 
plete scope  of  its  symmetrical  activity,  discerns  other  ques- 
tions and  makes  further  demands.  Let  us  glance  at 
them. 

II.  What  are  the  Efficient  Causes  of  Variative  Deri- 
vation of  Species? 

Plainly,  it  may  become  shown  that  the  mode  of  activity 
of  the  organism,  either  conditioned  or  unconditioned  by 
the  environment,  is  the  means  through  which  the  vital 
phenomena  of  the  world  are  brought  to  pass,  and  we  may 
still  be  ignorant  of  the  efficient  cause  of  that  activity,  or 
of  the  subject  exerting  the  activity.  Now,  even  though 
an  indwelling  and  persistent  nisus  should  appear  to  be 
the  principal  impulse  to  physiological  activities,  we  have 
to  seek  after  the  source  of  the  impulse.  Does  it  originate 
in  the  tissue  in  which  it  acts?  Is  it  a  product  of  the 


GROUNDS    AND   CONSEQUENCES   OF    EVOLUTION.     353 

tissue?  These  are  the  bottom  questions,  the  solution  of 
which  possesses  the  highest  interest  for  theology,  and 
indeed  for  every  seeker  after  fundamental  truth.  We  do 
not  propose  here  to  enter  into  any  argument  ;  but  for 
our  part,  it  seems  perfectly  clear  that  the  efficient  cause 
of  physiological  changes,  though  active  in  the  organism, 
is  metaphysically  objective  to  the  organism  in  which  they 
are  revealed.  Our  conclusion  is  grounded,  first,  on  our 
necessary  conception  of  efficient  cause;  secondly,  on  the 
discernment  reflected  in  the  mode  of  activity  of  physi- 
ological causes.  Efficient,  —  that  is,  primitive,  original, 
real,  —  causation  is  the  direction  of  adequate  efficiency, 
through  appropriate  instrumentalities  (if  needed),  toward 
a  preconceived  and  desiderated  result.  If  any  supposed 
cause  acts  in  any  other  way,  then  it  is  itself  an  effect, 
or  an  instrument,  or  a  condition,  and  the  real  cause  re- 
mains to  be  sought.  If  physiological  force  does  not  thus 
act,  then,  in  tracing  results  to  such  force,  we  have  not 
found  their  cause.  Of  such  nature  may  be  the  "  causes  " 
with  which  science  deals,  but  they  are  not  rational  causes. 
In  this  case  we  have  to  seek  for  the  volition  and  precon- 
ception and  motive  back  of  physiological  force.  But  if 
physiological  force  does  thus  act,  then  volition  and  pre- 
conception and  motive  are  revealed  in  every  vital  change. 
Thus  we  argue,  even  when  force  acts  without  adapt- 
iveness.  But  vital  forces  act  with  reference  to  external 
conditions,  and  with  reference  to  ideal  concepts.  Here 
is  double  proof,  then,  of  intellectual  discernments.  What- 
ever results,  therefore,  are  produced  by  the  slow,  perpetual 
activities  of  physiological  forces,  conditioned,  to  whatever 
extent,  by  the  environment,  are  the  results  of  an  ever- 
present,  discerning  efficiency  ;  and  the  more  we  see  the 
23 


354  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

organism  moulded  to  the  environment,  the  more  clearly 
we  see  reflected  the  intellectual  element  of  that  efficiency. 
If  the  existing  world  is  the  genealogical  result  of  primi- 
tive conditions,  then  the  efficiency  which  the  cycles  of  the 
past  have  witnessed  in  the  transformation  of  successive 
terms  has  been  enlightened  by  intelligence,  directed  by 
choice,  and  impelled  by  will.  We  cast  our  glances  back 
over  the  awful  chasm  of  cosmic  aeons,  and  contemplate 
it  as  the  theater  of  the  display  of  an  infinity  of  miracles, 
revealed  in  an  unbroken,  sustained,  adaptive  and  all- 
embracing  system  of  evolution. 

III.  What  is  the  Final  Cause  of  Variative  Derivation 
of  Species? 

We  are  properly  reminded  by  the  agnostic  school  that 
we  must  not  presume  to  know  fully  the  motives  which 
actuate  an  infinite  will.  At  the  same  time  we  feel  fully 
persuaded  that  no  intelligence  acts  without  some  motive  — 
not  even  an  infinite  intelligence;  for  motive  stands  corre- 
lated to  intelligence  as  such,  and  not  the  greatness  of 
intelligence.  We  feel  it,  therefore,  perfectly  legitimate  to 
inquire  after  the  motives  which  have  controlled  divine 
activity  in  the  ordering  of  the  world.  It  is  only  the  dis- 
closure of  motive  which  brings  us  into  any  relation  of 
sympathy  or  mutual  interest  with  another  being.  Absence 
of  motive  implies  absence  of  feeling.  The  conception  of 
activity  without  motive  is  the  conception  of  a  grim,  heart- 
less necessity.  As  to  motive  in  the  world,  we  shall  not 
attempt  to  point  out  all  which  may  be  suggested.  We 
are  certain,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  accomplishment 
of  a  result  was  a  motive  for  the  exertion  of  cosmic  effi- 
ciency. And  we  are  certain  that  coordinated  parts  of  the 
cosmos  have  never  assumed  their  places  without  the  help 


GROUNDS   AND   CONSEQUENCES   OF    EVOLUTION.     355 

of  intelligent  intention,  no  matter  what  human  or  higher 
uses  the  coordination  may  subsei-ve.  In  the  second  place, 
the  natural  reason  can  never  divest  itself  of  the  conviction 
that  complicated  and  slowly  maturing  results  which  re- 
spond to  the  wants  of  sensitive  beings  were  designed  so 
to  respond.  Among  the  wants  of  intelligent  beings  are 
appropriate  stimuli  to  mental  activity,  and  appropriate 
rewards  for  mental  effort.  One  of  the  highest  and  noblest 
stimuli  to  mental  activity  is  the  hope  of  attaining  to  the 
higher  laws  or  modes  of  change  and  succession  in  the 
natural  world,  and  thus  approaching  as  close  as  possible 
into  intelligent  relation  with  the  unseen  and  mysterious 
Power  which  sustains  the  world.  The  law  of  evolution 
discloses  itself  as  the  highest  generalization  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  cosmos.  If  we  discover  that  this  law  in- 
volves not  only  an  ideal,  but  a  physical,  continuity,  we 
seem  to  have  attained  in  cosmical  dynamics  to  that  unity 
which  has  been  the  aspiration  of  all  science  and  all  philoso- 
phy. This,  then,  is  the  highest  possible  disclosure  of  the 
Supreme  Intelligence  which  nature  can  yield  ;  and  we 
shall  expose  ourselves  to  no  just  charge  of  credulity  in 
thinking  such  a  revelation  of  the  Supreme  Mind  to  be  one 
of  the  final  causes  of  the  all-embracing  scheme  of  evolu- 
tion by  continuity. 

The  world  and  its  parts  may  be  compared  to  a  stately 
dwelling  ;  and  the  scientist  who  investigates  its  constitu- 
tion and  the  mode  of  its  origin  is  like  a  visitor  from 
some  realm  where  houses  are  not  built.  This  intelligent 
visitor  studies  inquiringly  every  accessible  part.  He  cata- 
logues the  parts  as  the  naturalist  catalogues  the  members 
of  the  animal  kingdom.  He  discovers  a  unity  in  the 
conception  of  the  edifice,  and  says  that  its  style  is 


356  SPARKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

"  gothic " ;  as  the  zoologist  says  the  style  of  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  animal  kingdom  is  "  vertebrate."  But  our 
stranger  has  never  seen  an  edifice  in  process  of  construc- 
tion, and  he  conjectures  the  method  in  accordance  with 
which  its  features  might  have  been  originated  and  com- 
bined. Evidently,  he  says  to  himself,  one  method  would 
be  the  full  completion  of  each  portion  of  the  building 
before  beginning  another  portion,  as  a  mud-wasp  builds 
its  cell.  At  length,  however,  he  discovers  an  edifice  in 
process  of  erection  ;  as  the  biologist  studies  the  building 
up  of  an  animal  from  the  egg.  An  excavation  is  first 
made  for  the  foundations;  this  is  the  "primitive  furrow." 
The  basement  walls  are  raised  around  it;  the  sills  and 
the  floor-timbers  are  laid ;  these  are  the  "  protovertebrae." 
Next  the  side  walls  are  raised  and  the  roof  is  closed  in. 
This  is  the  median  junction  of  the  body  walls  in  the  em- 
bryo. Thus  the  most  general  features  of  the  structure 
first  appear.  The  places  of  partitions  and  stairways  are 
indicated  by  rough  timbers,  and  the  plan  of  the  house  is 
outlined.  As  the  work  proceeds  the  rough  timbers  are 
covered  with  flooring  and  lath  ;  then  the  walls  receive 
coats  of  brown  mortar,  and,  lastly,  a  white  finish.  Still 
remain  the  casings  and  mouldings,  and  paint  and  varnish. 
Now  the  house  is  complete,  and  our  gratified  stranger 
concludes  that  the  stately  edifice,  the  cathedral,  the  town 
hall,  were  all  constructed  according  to  a  method  of  "  evo- 
lution,"—  the  most  fundamental  parts  first,  the  details 
successively  filled  in.  He  has  discovered  the  method,  the 
order  of  succession  of  the  parts.  Now  he  knows  that  all 
buildings  are  constructed  according  to  a  law  of  evolution; 
as  the  biologist  has  learned  in  reference  to  animals,  and 
the  cosmologist  in  reference  to  worlds.  But  our  stranger 


GKOUNDS    AND   CONSEQUENCES   OF   EVOLUTION.     357 

could  not  for  a  moment  imagine  that  the  method  or  law 
of  construction  did  the  work  of  construction;  nor  can  the 
biologist  hold  that  the  law  of  evolution  accounts  for  the 
existence  of  the  animal.  The  work  in  the  edifice  has 
been  done  by  mechanics,  with  the  use  of  tools  and  ma- 
chineiy.  These  are  the  physiological  activities  which 
build  up  the  tissues  and  membei's  of  the  animal.  These 
mechanics  act  under  the  bidding  of  another  will,  and,  in 
this  relation,  they  are  only  a  part  of  the  mechanism 
which  performs  the  work.  Their  hands  are  not  the  prime 
cause  of  the  building, —  they  are  not  the  real  cause.  The 
building  would  never  exist  if  there  were  not  a  prime 
mover  in  the  will  of  the  proprietor.  That  will  is  the 
cause  of  the  edifice  ;  but  this  will  has  not  ordained  this 
structure  without  motive.  Whatever  the  motive, —  for 
residence,  for  display,  for  a  monument,  for  some  caprice, 
or  for  some  motive  undisclosed, —  there  has  been  a  why 
for  his  determination. 

Thus,  in  the  contemplation  of  the  universe,  it  is  the 
part  of  science  to  catalogue  phenomena  and  learn  their 
mode  and  order  of  occurrence,  and  the  physical  agencies 
concei-ned  in  their  production.  But  there  are  profounder 
inquiries  propounded  by  reason,  and  deeper  longings  felt 
by  the  soul.  After  science  has  accomplished  her  last 
work  in  her  especial  domain,  reason  draws  aside  the  veil 
which  obstructs  the  vision  of  science,  and  discovers  the 
Supreme  Efficiency  working  in  all  things,  and  working 
out  the  welfare  of  sentient  beings  ;  and  the  soul  arises 
and  adores  the  God  whose  presence  it  before  had  felt,  but 
now  rationally  cognizes. 


THE  METAPHYSICS  OF  SCIENCE/ 


Q1CIENCE,  taken  in  its  modern  and  restricted  sense,  is 
^-<  a  knowledge  of  phenomena  and  of  their  orders  of 
succession. 

Sensible  phenomena  are  qualities  or  changes  existing 
in  relation  to  our  faculty  of  external  cognition.  The 
relation  is  only  that  mode  of  existence,  as  to  time,  place 
or  nature,  which  awakens  in  us  a  consciousness  of  power 
exerted  upon  us,  and  a  reference  of  the  impression  to  an 
external  phenomenon  as  its  concomitant.  Qualities  or 
changes  which  exist  without  such  relation  are  not  phe- 
nomena capable  of  constituting  material  of  human  science. 

An  order  of  succession  or  mode  of  sequence  among 
phenomena  may  be  cognized  as  invariable  or  variable. 

*  The  following  discussion,  reproduced  by  permission,  with  certain  changes 
and  additions,  from  the  North  American  Remew  for  January  1880,  is  intended  as 
a  protest  against  the  assumptions  made  by  a  certain  school  of  modern  science. 
The  pretense  that  any  valid  science  can  be  constituted  out  of  purely  empirical 
material  is  a  claim  which  exerts  a  predisposing  influence  upon  those  who  feel 
averse  to  abstract  thinking;  and  it  has  acquired  a  temporary  popularity  through 
connection  with  certain  brilliant  reputations.  But  the  reader  is  requested  to 
note  the  fact  that  the  representatives  of  the  school  of  scientific  philosophy  here 
criticised  feel  themselves  irresistibly  led,  more  and  more  as  reflection  is  ex- 
tended, into  a  recognition  of  those  underlying  principles  of  knowledge  which, 
in  their  full  application,  vitiate  the  grounds  of  all  purely  empirical  science. 
He  is  reminded  also  that  those  representatives  of  science,  either  in  the  present 
or  tho  past,  who  have  created  the  most  substantial  and  enduring  reputations  are 
those  who  have  united  the  philosophic  spirit  with  the  strictly  scientific;  while 
the  utterances  of  those  who  deny  or  ignore  the  validity  of  all  meteinpirical 
grounds  of  reasoning  excite  more  the  astonished  admiration  of  the  populace  by 
loud  and  dogmatic  affirmation  than  the  respect  and  approbation  of  the  thought- 
ful who  make  up  the  final  verdicts  on  reputations. 


THE   METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  359 

When  a  certain  mode  of  sequence  is  cognized  as  repeat- 
edly  and  continuously  occurring,  we  generalize  by  calling 
it  fixed  and  invariable.  The  invariable  order  of  succes- 
sion of  two  or  more  phenomena  is  the  law  in  accordance 
with  which  the  occurrence  of  the  sequents  is  regulated. 
The  law  being  ascertained,  we  feel  confident,  whenever 
the  antecedent  is  cognized,  that  one  or  more  sequents 
will  come  into  existence.  We  thus  predict  events  on  the 
sti-ength  of  our  confidence  in  the  uniformity  and  irrepeal- 
ability  of  the  law  induced.  Whenever  a  mode  of  sequence 
is  cognized  which  is  not  repeated,  or  is  repeated  only  in 
such  a  manner  that  no  regularity  or  uniformity  is  dis- 
covered, we  record  it,  for  the  time,  as  a  variable  mode 
of  sequence.  We  fail  to  induce  the  law  under  which  the 
phenomena  come  into  existence. 

Yet  we  are  psychically  so  constituted  as  to  believe  in  the 
uniformity  of  nature.  Even  orders  of  succession  which 
seem  capricious  or  chaotic  must  imply  some  law  under 
which  they  succeed,  and  in  the  eye  of  which  they  are  in- 
variable. In  this  intuitive  faith  we  seek  to  discover  the 
law. 

The  method  of  the  search  is  the  mental  juxtaposition 
of  two  or  moi-e  series  of  successions  judged  to  be  funda- 
mentally cognate,  and  the  selection  of  such  terms  in  the 
juxtaposed  series  as  exactly  coincide  with  each  other. 
These  terms,  thus  observed  to  recur  in  fixed  order,  yield 
the  law  of  their  recurrence.  The  intercalated  terms  re- 
main apparently  adventitious,  and  must  occur  in  accord- 
ance with  one  or  more  different  laws  which  may  remain 
undiscovered,  or  may  be  discovered,  one  by  one,  by  means 
of  the  juxtaposition  of  a  larger  number  of  series,  and  the 
exercise  of  a  broader  mental  power  of  holding  phenomena 


360  SPARKS  FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

befoi'e  attention,  and  selecting  the  like  and  neglecting  the 
unlike.  This  is  well  illustrated  by  the  method  of  astron- 
omy in  selecting  from  an  apparently  chaotic  mass  of  ob- 
servations such  as  agree  in  time  and  position  with  a 
given  set  of  observations,  and  thus  afford  ground  for  the 
elimination  of  the  law  of  the  motion  of  a  newly  investi- 
gated planet  or  comet;  or  the  law  of  correlation  between 
sun-spots  on  the  one  hand  and  auroral  displays,  magnetic 
disturbances  or  Indian  famines  on  the  other. 

It  is"  the  work  of  science  to  extend  as  far  as  possible 
the  knowledge  of  phenomena.  It  is  its  higher  work  to 
arrange  phenomena  into  homogeneous  groups, —  that  is, 
into  series  of  successions  in  which  the  terms  appear  to 
possess  some  fixed  relations  of  time,  space  or  nature  to 
each  other.  It  is  the  highest  work  of  science  to  perfect 
the  classification  of  phenomena  and  induce  the  laws  under 
which  they  occur. 

The  work  of  science  has  proceeded  so  far  that  innumera- 
ble phenomena,  which  were  once  regarded  as  isolated,  are 
known  to  occupy  fixed  places  in  invariable  sequences  which 
come  into  existence  under  laws  of  nature.  , 

Isolated  phenomena, —  that  is,  those  not  apprehended  as 
sustaining  relations  of  effect  to  antecedent  phenomena, — 
were  regarded  in  unscientific  ages  as  occurring  by  chance, 
or  through  the  momentary  volition  of  beings  possessing 
control  of  particular  departments  of  nature,  or  of  the 
whole  of  nature.  A  sentiment  universal,  and  undoubt- 
edly innate  in  humanity,  prompts  intelligence  to  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  one  or  more  superior  beings,  to 
whom  the  direct  or  indirect  causation  of  phenomena  may 
be  ascribed,  and  toward  whom  a  feeling  of  veneration 
may  be  directed.  As  fast  as  science  has  succeeded  in 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  361 

relegating  under  law  any  of  these  supposed  isolated  phe- 
nomena, they  have  been  viewed  as  accounted  for  and 
explained  without  recourse  to  the  volition  of  superior 
beings.  To  such  extent  these  beings  have  seemed  to  be 
retired  from  participation  in  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and 
the  religious  feeling  has  been  robbed  of  occasions  for  its 
exercise.  Hence  the  progress  of  science  has  seemed  to 
antagonize  the  religious  sentiment.  Science  has,  there- 
fore, been  denounced  as  atheistic,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  religions  of  men  have  been  despised  as  ignorant 
and  superstitious.* 

The  immediate  work  of  science,  as  just  stated,  consists 
of  observation,  comparison  and  induction.  Obviously,  a 
law  reached  by  induction  from  facts  is  a  principle  from 
which  other  facts  may  be  deduced;  and  this  is  one  of  the 
legitimate  and  characteristic  processes  of  science.  Science, 
in  the  full  exercise  of  all  its  functions,  is  not,  therefore, 
exclusively  inductive. 

Without  observation,  the  material  of  science  would  not 
exist.  There  could  be  neither  comparison,  induction,  nor 
deduction.  Without  comparison,  no  affiliated  juxtaposi- 
tions of  phenomena  would  become  known;  and  we  should 
reach  neither  the  laws  which  regulate  them,  nor  an  anti- 
cipation of  other  phenomena  coordinated  under  the  same 
laws.  Without  induction,  the  observation  of  phenomena 
would  only  create  a  mass  of  undigested  material,  like  that 

*  These  thought!?  are  here  only  collateral,  but  the  writer  believes  that  they 
lie  very  near  the  true  solution  and  peaceful  determination  of  the  "  conflict  be- 
tween religion  and  science."  He  has  elsewhere  viewed  these  relations  simply 
as  a  normal  and  not  destructive  interaction  between  the  rational  and  the  relig- 
ions powers  of  man;  and  has  offered  an  exposition  which  sets  both  religion  and 
science  in  the  character  of  forces  exercising  a  natural,  harmonious  and  benefi- 
cent interplay,  like  the  mutual  actions  of  the  other  polar  forces  in  the  universal 
dualism  of  the  world.  See  Reconciliation  of  Science  and  Religion,  12mo,  pp.  403, 
1877,  chapters  I-III. 


362  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

which  accumulated  in  the  observatory  of  Tycho  Brahe. 
Without  deduction,  the  universe  of  phenomena  would  pre- 
sent the  order  and  symmetry  of  a  perfect  machine,  the 
products  of  whose  activity  we  could  know  only  as  they 
were  wrought  out.  Anticipation,  —  prediction,  —  and  all 
the  plans  and  operations  based  upon  expectation,  would 
have  no  place  among  human  activities  if  science  could  not 
descend  from  principle  to  fact.  All  conceptions  of  phe- 
nomena that  have  not  been  objects  of  cognition  must  be 
based  on  deduction,  proceeding  fi-om  general  principles 
established  by  induction  from  cognized  phenomena.  By 
such  means  science  has  affirmed  the  internal  solidity  of 
the  earth,  or  predicted  the  eccentricity  of  her  orbit  at 
an  epoch  a  million  years  in  the  future,  or  pictured  her 
physical  condition  in  a  past  removed  from  us  by  millions 
of  years. 

Such  seem  to  be  the  scope  and  prerogatives  of  that 
department  of  science  whose  data  are  sensible  phenomena. 
The  term  science,  in  its  modern,  popular  acceptation, 
signifies  the  science  of  sensible  phenomena.  When  the 
term  is  employed  without  qualification  it  is  generally 
understood  to  signify  physical  science. 

There  are,  however,  other  fields  of  phenomena  —  using 
the  term  in  an  extended  but  legitimate  sense  —  cognizable 
through  internal,  instead  of  external,  perception.  The 
phenomena  of  the  mind  have  an  existence  as  certain,  and 
orders  of  succession  as  fixed  and  cognizable,  as  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  external  world.  The  reality  of  mental 
phenomena  is  absolutely  unquestionable.  They  are,  in 
fact,  the  only  data  of  demonstrable  knowledge.  Sensible 
phenomena  are  only  names  which  we  ascribe  to  assumed 
external  manifestations  believed  to  be  coordinated  with 


THE  METAPHYSICS  OF   SCIENCE.  363 

cognized  internal  phenomena.  Hence  the  certainty  of 
external  phenomena  is  conditioned  on  the  validity  of  this 
belief.  External  phenomena,  therefore,  cannot  become  so 
immediately,  even  if  they  are  so  certainly,  the  materials 
of  valid  knowledge,  as  those  phenomena  which  arise  in 
the  mental  field. 

Among  the  phenomena  of  consciousness  we  have  to 
make,  therefore,  the  following  discriminations  :  First, 
Mental  states,  or  psychic  modes,  without  regard  to  their 
sources,  occasions  or  coordinations  to  any  other  facts  than 
mental  states;  Secondly,  Those  among  the  mental  states 
which  we  irresistibly  refer  to  external  phenomena  as  their 
correlates  and  causes.  But  there  is  also  a  third  category 
of  mental  states,  or  inner  perceptions,  which  we  irresistibly 
refer  to  abstract  and  necessary  truths. 

The  truths  thus  cognized  as  having  a  necessary,  uni- 
versal and  eternal  existence  are  truths  concerning  neces- 
sary being  and  necessary  relations.  Space  and  time  are 
existences  which  must  be  held  necessary  in  the  same  sense 
as  other  truths  are  necessary;  and  the  relations  of  por- 
tions of  them  are  relations  of  quantity,  which  are  formu- 
lated in  well-known  axioms  and  theorems,  embraced  among 
the  necessary  truths  which  stand  as  correlates  to  the  third 
class  of  mental  states.  Other  truths  are  the  inseparable- 
ness  of  quality  and  substance,  attribute  and  being,  effect 
and  cause,  order  and  intelligence,  continuity  of  existence, 
universality  of  law,  ultimate  unit}r  and  ultimate  primordi- 
ality  of  existence.  Some  of  these  principles  have  generally 
been  omitted  from  enumerations  of  necessary  truths;  and 
the  reader,  if  he  think  proper,  can  omit  them  here,  as  the 
main' purpose  is  simply  to  adduce  illustrations,  and  not 
to  establish  a  catalogue. 


364  SPAEKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

Finally  we  discern  a  fourth  class  of  mental  states. 
These  are  the  assumptions  which  we  irresistibly  make  of 
an  absolute  causal  relation  between  certain  conscious 
states  and  realities  external  to  consciousness.  We  find  in 
existence  an  assumption  that  certain  states  are  caused  by 
sensible  phenomena  ;  and  an  assumption  that  other  men- 
tal states  are  caused  by  the  disclosure  of  certain  abstract 
truths;  and  an  assumption  that  these  abstract  truths  have 
a  necessary  existence  in  the  universe  of  which  we  are  a 
part.  We  find  here,  also,  the  assumption  of  personal  ex- 
istence and  personal  identity.  This  fourth  group  of  con- 
scious states  impresses  a  belief  in  the  reality  of  sensible 
phenomena;  in  the  reality  of  existence  behind  these  phe- 
nomena ;  in  the  reality  of  supersensible  existence  under- 
neath all  psychic  phenomena,  and  in  the  reality  of  truth 
apprehended  as  universal  and  necessary.  These  subtle, 
instantaneous  and  irresistible  assumptions  are  the  only 
bond  of  connection  between  us  and  any  realm  outside  of 
our  own  minds.  Invalidate  them,  and  all  which  seems  to 
exist,  either  in  a  world  without  or  a  world  within,  re- 
solves itself  into  a  phantasmagoi'ia  of  forms  without  sub- 
stance,—  a  succession  of  mental  states  which  seems  to  have 
a  cause  and  correlative,  but  has  none;  a  succession  which 
seems  to  be  concatenated  and  orderly,  but  is  absolutely 
chaotic  and  fortuitous;  a  succession  of  states  which,  after 
all,  are  not  states,  but  only  the  alluring  and  deceptive 
images  of  states, —  and  not  even  images,  for  the  seeming 
must  be  as  fanciful  and  illusory  as  the  seeming  of  sub- 
stance. Deny  the  validity  of  the  assumption  of  causal 
correlations  between  mental  states  and  realities,  and  all 
knowledge  is  annulled.  We  float  only  in  a  glittering 
realm  of  empty  forms, —  we  cannot  say  we  float,  but  we 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  365 

seem  to  float, —  we  cannot  say  we  seem  to  float,  but  we 
seem  to  seem  to  float.  All  predication  is  annihilated.  We 
are  conscious  at  first  of  existing  in  a  world  of  realities; 
then  we  float  in  a  realm  of  unsubstantial  visions  ;  then 
everything, —  visions  and  realities  alike, —  sinks  into  abso- 
lute nihility.  Such  denial  is  the  end  of  all  philosophy 
and  all  science  alike.  What  do  we  say?  All  science  and 
all  philosophy  depend  for  their  validity  on  the  validity 
of  our  reference  of  certain  mental  states  to  causal  corre- 
lates external  to  the  mind. 

That  the  reference  is  valid,  no  one  can  doubt  in  a 
practical  manner.  Denial,  even  of  the  speculative  kind, 
is  impossible.  The  utmost  which  speculative  thinking  has 
ever  been  able  to  do  is  to  affirm  the  possibility  that  such 
reference  is  invalid.  The  history  of  philosophy  has  shown 
that  the  most  eminent  propounders  of  this  possibility 
have  found,  in  after  life,  satisfactory  ground  for  holding 
that  the  reference  is  valid  ;  and  that,  therefore,  a  realm 
of  reality  exists,  and  that  it  is  such  as  reported  in  con- 
sciousness. 

Every  argument  between  two  parties  must  proceed  on 
the  fundamental  admission  that  those  states  of  mind  which 
have  been  here  described  as  announcements  of  a  correla- 
tion between  other  states  and  external  realities  are  truth- 
ful announcements.  If  either  deny  this,  he  deprives  him- 
self of  all  ultimate  ground  for  either  affirmation  or  denial; 
and  his  attempt  to  reason  is  like  the  effort  to  move  the 
world  without  the  basis  for  a  fulcrum. 

After  this  conspectus  of  the  situation,  let  us  examine 
more  attentively  the  foundations  underneath  the  fabric 
of  physical  science. 

The  current  conception  of  physical  science  presents  it 


366  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

as  a  body  of  knowledge.  It  is  commonly  regarded  as  the 
most  certain  of  all  knowledge,  and  the  safest  foundation 
for  belief,  expectation  and  action.  Men  stand  firm  on  the 
conclusions  of  science,  however  they  falter  on  the  isolated 
propositions  which  science  subsumes.  They  formulate 
their  creeds  on  the  dicta  of  science,  though  they  may  pro- 
fess to  doubt  or  be  ignorant  in  the  presence  of  the  naked 
principles  which  authenticate  the  dicta  of  science. 

That  science  attains  to  valid  knowledge  cannot  be  ra- 
tionally denied.  Instead  of  denying,  it  is  our  purpose  to 
demonstrate  that  it  is  valid;  and  that  it  is  valid  because 
certain  underlying  principles  which  science  never  men- 
tions are  the  firm  foundations  on  which  it  rests. 

I.  All  science  begins  in  the  assumed  existence  of  a 
real,  thinking  being.  But  what  is  the  ground  of  the 
assumption  of  our  personal  existence  and  personal  identity 
from  moment  to  moment  and  from  day  to  day?  The 
conviction  is  grounded  in  our  inmost  consciousness;  we 
are  unable  to  resist  it;  but  it  is  only  a  belief — a  valid 
belief — the  ultimate  elemental  utterance  of  mind,  speak- 
ing with  the  authority  of  its  very  being.  Nothing,  of 
course,  can  validate  its  utterance;  but,  if  we  choose  to 
admit  a  speculative  doubt,  we  negative  at  once  all  possi- 
bility of  science  and  all  possibility  of  a  scientific  basis 
for  anything. 

All  trustworthiness  of  memory  rests  in  the  presuppo- 
sition, not  only  that  the  representative  faculty  is  a  true 
witness,  but  that  we  are  the  same  being  as  yesterday. 
The  scientist  records  his  notes  after  hours,  days  or  weeks 
have  passed;  and  he  builds  most  serious  reasoning  on  the 
assumption  that  it  was  he  who  made  the  observations 
which  he  seems  to  reproduce.  If  he  is  mistaken  in  this, 


THE   METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  367 

his  reasoning  is  illusory;  but  he  builds,  sometimes  un- 
mindful of  the  fact  that  his  fabric  rests  upon  a  purely 
and  deeply  metaphysical  subsumption. 

II.  Admitting  the  evidence  of  personal  existence  suffi- 
cient, other  queries  immediately  arise  which  must  be  dis- 
posed of.  Science  we  have  defined  as  beginning  objectively 
in  a  knowledge  of  phenomena.  Now,  how  do  we  know 
that  phenomena  exist?  or  that  they  exist  as  they  seem? 
or  that  any  reality  lies  behind  them?  or  that  the  reality 
is  such  as  it  seems  to  be?  Plainly,  all  these  things  are 
assumed  on  the  naked  testimony  of  the  mind.  Conscious- 
ness reports  phenomena,  and  we  believe.  Consciousness 
represents  them  thus  and  so,  and  we  believe.  And  then 
we  find  disclosed  in  consciousness  a  confidence  that  all 
phenomena  are  grounded  in  real  existence,  and  that  such 
phenomena  as  these  are  grounded  in  a  mode  of  existence 
sustaining  an  exact  correlation  to  these  particular  phe- 
nomena. This  confidence  is  only  belief  in  the  ultimate 
verdict  of  our  being.  All  science,  to  be  substantial,  must 
assume  the  -validity  of  all  these  ultimate  beliefs.  The  most 
logical  conclusions  of  science  must  necessarily  imply  that 
there  are  some  propositions  which  do  not  admit  of  logical 
proof,  but  which  must  be  received  with  absolute  unreserve. 
These  ultimate  propositions  are  simply  believed  without 
reasoning;  but  our  belief  is  so  strong  that  we  feel  it  to 
be  knowledge.  If  it  is  not  knowledge,  the  fabric  of  propo- 
sitions which  we  build  upon  it  is  not  knowledge.  If  it 
is  knowledge,  then  the  plain,  simple,  ultimate  utterances 
of  our  minds  are  the  indestructible  molecules  of  all  our 
systems  of  science;  and  the  testimony  of  consciousness  re- 
specting the  coordination  between  any  of  its  states  and 
external  realities  is  a  direct  intuition  of  truth. 


368  SPAEKS    FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S    HAMMER. 

This  conclusion  cannot  be  avoided.  The  reality  and 
gemiineness  of  our  knowledge  of  the  phenomena  assumed 
as  the  material  of  science  is  absolutely  conditioned  on  the 
veracity  of  consciousness  in  certain  of  its  testimony.  Im- 
pugn this  veracity  in  any  respect,  and  the  genuineness  of 
the  materials  of  science  is  correspondingly  impaired.  The 
more  valiantly  we  affirm  the  indestructibility  of  scientific 
knowledge,  the  more  explicitly  we  admit  the  unimpeach- 
able veracity  of  the  testimony  of  consciousness.  If  con- 
sciousness is  not  admitted  as  a  veracious  witness  thus  far, 
it  is  impossible  to  hold  an  argument  with  the  reader.  If 
consciousness  is  admitted  veracious,  so  far  as  to  validate 
the  phenomena  from  which  science  proceeds,  we  may  next 
inquire  what  are  the  further  implications  of  scientific 
knowledge. 

III.  Supposing  the  facts  of  observation  to  stand  in 
every  respect  unchallenged,  some  principles  of  relation 
must  be  tacitly  assumed  to  serve  as  the  ground  and  au- 
thentication of  any  classification.  Whether  we  associate 
them  with  reference  to  time  or  place,  concomitance  or 
succession,  quantity  or  quality,  it  is  in  every  case  a  basis 
of  resemblance.  Without  some  kind  of  mutual  resem- 
blance, no  homogeneity  or  community  would  be  present 
to  justify  any  general  predication.  But  when  we  adopt 
any  kind  of  resemblance  as  the  basis  of  classification,  we 
tacitly  assume  that  likeness  among  phenomena  proceeds 
from  community  or  identity  of  cause ;  in  other  words, 
that  "  like  effects  proceed  from  like  causes."  This  is  a 
principle  which  must  be  validated  by  pure  reason  to  ac- 
quire that  character  of  certainty,  universality  and  necessity 
which  we  assume  it  to  possess  in  the  use  which  we  make 
of  it.  If  it  be  thought  a  principle  resting  on  a  general 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  369 

induction  from  observation,  then  admitting  (contrary  to 
the  fact)  that  the  same  absolute  certainty  could  be  reached, 
the  very  process  of  generalization  assumes  still  the  same 
principle,  that  homogeneity  of  phenomena  implies  simi- 
larity of  cause.  Hence,  when  we  look  to  general  induction 
for  the  validity  of  the  principle  that  like  results  proceed 
from  like  causes,  we  find  that  the  induction  itself  assumes 
beforehand  the  validity  of  the  principle;  and  our  effort 
is  simply  a  case  of  reasoning  in  a  circle.  As  general  in- 
duction cannot,  therefore,  validate  the  principle  which 
validates  general  induction,  it  follows  that  the  principle 
is  validated  either  by  deduction  or  by  the  direct  sanction 
of  pure  reason.  But  it  is  not  a  deductive  conclusion,  for 
the  principle  itself,  possessing  the  highest  degree  of  gen- 
erality, is  not  the  result  of  an  analysis.  We  discover  no 
account  of  the  validation  of  the  principle  except  in  the 
sanction  of  the  same  rational  authority  as  speaks  to  us  in 
affirming  a  correlation  between  certain  conscious  states 
and  external  1'ealities.  Here,  then,  in  the  first  step  which 
science  takes  in  formulating  a  general  concept  or  scientific 
doctrine,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  rely  on  the  universal 
validity  of  a  principle  which  cannot  be  established  by  sci- 
entific processes,  nor  indeed  by  any  formal  logic  whatever. 

So,  it  may  be  added,  the  whole  search  after  general 
laws,  or  the  unification  of  human  knowledge,  is  prompted 
and  guaranteed  by  the  intuitive  conviction  that  unity 
exists  among  the  diversified  phenomena  of  nature.  If  no 
ulterior  unity  existed,  or  if  reason  were  not  furnished 
with  the  knowledge  of  its  existence,  the  search  for  general 
laws  and  deeper  causes  would  never  be  undertaken,  or, 
if  undertaken,  would  be  fruitless. 

It  is  extremely  easy  for  the  scientific  investigator  to 
34 


370  SPARKS    FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

overlook  a  metaphysical  principle  involved  in  the  com- 
parison and  classification  of  concrete  phenomena;  but  since 
the  principle  clearly  reveals  itself  to  critical  attention, 
we  must  frankly  acknowledge  that  the  entire  fabric  of 
physical  science  rests  upon  a  truth  grounded  in  the  realm 
of  metaphysics;  and  that  this  is  not  for  such  reason  a 
truth  "merely  speculative"  in  the  reproachful  sense,  but 
a  truth  which  is  self-evident,  and  surer  than  any  scien- 
tific conclusion.  To  a  certain  class  of  minds  such  a 
statement  may  not  address  itself  with  all  the  cogency  of 
a  concrete  proposition,  but  it  may  impress  the  necessity 
of  caution  in  vaunting  scientific  conclusion  from  sensible 
phenomena  as  the  most  certain  kind  of  knowledge,  and 
incomparably  more  substantial  than  the  ethereal  abstrac- 
tions of  metaphysics. 

IV.  When,  in  the  progress  of  our  scientific  investiga- 
tions, we  reach  the  stage  of  inductive  inference,  the  pro- 
cess of  concluding  from  a  part  to  the  whole  is  based  on  an 
assumption  of  the  uniformity  of  nature,  which  is  only 
the  concrete  form  of  the  principle  that  like  results  pro- 
ceed from  like  causes.  If  unobserved  phenomena  belong- 
ing to  the  same  group  with  those  on  which  the  infer- 
ence is  based  are  not  ascribable  to  the  same  cause,  or 
same  kind  of  cause,  we  have  no  right  to  extend  the  in- 
ference from  observed  data  to  these.  But  the  principle 
of  the  uniformity  of  causation  is  accepted  as  more  valid 
than  any  inference  which  we  may  induce  from  any  array 
of  phenomena,  however  extended.  The  inference  may 
express  a  bond  of  connection  running  through  the  phe- 
nomena observed,  and  no  others;  it  is  therefore  not  a 
causal  bond.  It  may  express  a  causal  bond,  but  not  the 
deepest  and  strongest  bond.  In  any  such  case  the  infer- 


THE    METAPHYSICS    OF   SCIENCE.  371 

ence  is  liable  to  fail  in  its  application  to  new  phenom- 
ena. The  inference,  therefore,  can  never  be  unreservedly 
accepted  except  when  the  facts  sustain  quantitative  and 
therefore  mathematical  relations  to  each  other.  But 
however  qualified  the  inference,  the  metaphysical  princi- 
ple on  which  it  proceeds  is  never  accepted  with  reserve. 
Uniformity  of  causation  is  felt  to  be  absolute.  The  com- 
mon process  of  inductive  conclusion,  which  is  the  staple 
method  of  science  in  the  evolution  of  doctrine,  requires, 
consequently,  an  underlying  metaphysical  principle  to 
give  it  any  semblance  of  validity. 

To  avoid  misconception  it  may  be  desirable  to  state 
that  the  phrase  "uniformity  of  nature"  as  here  employed, 
does  not  signify  simply  a  continuous  recurrence  of  iden- 
tical cycles  of  phenomena,  like  those  of  a  day,  or  the 
orbital  revolution  of  a  planet,  since  such  uniformity  is 
merely  a  generalization  from  observation,  and  must  be 
conceived  capable  of  interruption.  When  this  uniformity, 
however,  shall  have  been  interrupted,  it  will  be  a  result 
proceeding  from  a  higher  principle  of  uniformity,  which 
requires  that  different  effects  under  changed  conditions 
shall  proceed  from  the  same  causal  activity. 

So,  it  may  be  added,  the  uncertainty  which,  in  any 
case,  or  in  all  cases,  hangs  over  a  conclusion  from  in- 
ductive data,  arises  not  from  any  possible  distrust  of  the 
principle  of  uniformity  of  causation  but  from  the  possi- 
bility that  our  imperfect  judgment  has  admitted  into  the 
comparison  facts  belonging  to  different  categories  of  causa- 
tion, and  therefore  connected  only  by  superficial  or  casual 
instead  of  fundamental  relationships.  Here  lurks  the  falli- 
bility of  inductive  conclusions;  and  here  arises  the  demand 
for  profounder  perceptions  than  finite  minds  possess. 


372  SPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

V.  Granting  the  highest  attainable  validity  to  the  suc- 
cessive steps  taken  by  science  in  attaining  its  ultimate 
generalizations,  these  are  expressions  of  laws  under  which 
successions  of  phenomena  come  into  existence.  The  order 
and  method  of  the  cosmos  are  so  far  revealed.  Its  phe- 
nomena become  intelligible  in  their  mutual  relations. 
The  flow  of  events  is  systematic,  certain,  predicable. 
Nothing  happens  capriciously,  or  with  any  regard  to 
interjected  emergencies.  No  variation  in  the  established 
order  of  events  can  be  expected  under  any  supposable 
circumstances.  This  is  the  "  reign  of  law."  No  ground 
exists  for  denying  that  this  reign  embraces  all  the  events 
which  make  up  the  history  of  the  irrational  world.  Nor 
can  it  be  denied  that  all  rational  activities  proceed  ac- 
cording to  some  law;  for  otherwise  there  would  be  no 
evidence  that  they  are  rational.  But  the  laws  of  rational 
activity  inhere  in  rational  spontaneity;  those  of  physical 
events  are  imposed  by  external  authority. 

But  the  reign  of  law  means  nothing  more  than  the 
universal  prevalence  of  methodical  successions  of  events. 
Law  is  the  formula  under  which  events  are  coordinated; 
but  law  does  not  produce  events.  A  phenomenon  is  scien- 
tifically explained  when  we  refer  it  to  the  law  under 
which  it  takes  place;  but  it  is  not  exhaustively  explained. 
For  the  purposes  of  science  it  is  adequate  to  ascribe 
events  to  law,  because  law  is  the  ultimate  stadium  of 
scientific  ratiocination.  It  lies  on  the  remotest  frontier 
of  scientific  territory.  Physical  law  is  itself  an  abstrac- 
tion, and  constitutes  the  connecting  link  between  the 
physical  and  the  metaphysical.  But  when  we  say,  in  the 
language  of  science,  that  events  "  come  by  law,"  we  must 
take  care  not  to  conclude  that  law  is  their  cause.  Law 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  373 

explains  their  order  of  succession,  but  does  not  explain 
how  the  law  came  into  existence,  nor  how  events  are 
generated,  nor  how  they  are  coordinated  so  methodically. 
Law  is  simply  the  rule  of  coordination  ;  efficiency  pro- 
duces them  and  coordinates  them. 

Law  viewed  scientifically  is  merely  a  rule  of  succession; 
viewed  philosophically  it  is  an  expression  of  power  and 
intelligence, —  a  synthesis  of  force  and  mind.  In  the  pur- 
view of  science,  law  is  the  key  to  unlock  the  methods  of 
nature, —  a  clew  to  guide  through  the  labyrinth  of  phe- 
nomena; in  the  eye  of  philosophy  it  is  a  preconceived 
plan  of  action,  purposeful  of  results.  While  science  rests 
on  law  as  a  finality,  philosophy  seeks  the  power  which 
ordains  law;  and,  viewing  law  as  the  expression  of  will, 
it  insists  on  the  reality  of  will  by  all  the  evidence  which 
science  summons  to  establish  the  reality  of  law.  Science 
claims  law  as  an  intelligible  principle  of  coordination 
among  phenomena;  and  philosophy  claims  an  intelligible 
principle  of  .coordination  as  the  exclusive  product  of  in- 
telligence. The  cosmos  is  comprehensible  by  thought,  be- 
cause it  is  the  product  of  thought.  Grant  the  mechanical 
nature  of  the  processes  of  the  world,  the  existence  of  a 
mechanism  which  does  not  express  mind  is  something  un- 
thinkable. 

Science  is  under  no  obligation  to  assume  a  strange 
garb  and  make  affirmation  of  the  predicates  of  philosophy. 
Such  freedom  may  authorize  science  to  ignore  the  predi- 
cates of  philosophy,  but  it  confers  no  privilege  to  deny 
them.  As  long  as,  maintaining  its  own  character,  it  ig- 
nores the  principles,  postulates  or  axioms  of  philosophy, 
it  cannot  antagonize  philosophy  ;  but  when  it  offers  an 
argument  ex  ignorantia  against  the  verdict  of  philosophy, 


374  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGISTS  HAMMER. 

all  right  thinking  recognizes  it  as  sophistical.  It  is  im- 
possible to  grasp  the  meaning  of  law  with  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  intelligence,  without  apprehending  it  both 
as  a  rule  and  as  an  expression  of  ordaining  will. 

VI.  As  law,  in  its  existence,  proclaims  necessarily  a 
purposive  ordination,  so  the  correlation  of  events  under 
law  must  necessarily  be  regarded  as  a  result  purposed  in 
law.  If  law  exists  as  the  result  of  purpose,  there  must 
be  a  reason  why  it  has  been  purposed  ;  and  the  reason 
why  can  exist  nowhere  but  in  the  results  impressed  by 
the  law, —  that  is,  in  the  results  which  take  place  accord- 
ing to  the  law.  The  coordination  of  results,  therefore,  is 
as  much  the  expression  of  purpose  as  the  law  which  em- 
bodies the  principle  of  coordination.  The  fact  that  events 
take  place  according  to  law,  instead  of  proving  their  dis- 
connection with  purpose,  is  the  very  circumstance  which 
demonstrates  their  dependence  on  purpose.  Caprice  and 
confusion  are  not  the  marks  of  intelligence  ;  high  con- 
trolling intelligence  always  seeks  its  ends  by  fixed  methods 
of  action.  The  more  clearly  we  discern  the  reign  of  uni- 
versal law,  the  more  clearly  we  discern  the  evidence  of 
general  design  in  the  phenomena  of  the  universe.  The 
question  whether  events  take  place  through  law  or  through 
design  is  destitute  of  rational  meaning ;  because,  first, 
events  are  produced  neither  by  law  nor  by  design  ;  and, 
secondly,  if  they  are  produced  by  design,  it  is,  as  we  see, 
according  to  law;  and  if  they  are  produced  by  law,  it  is 
accoi-ding  to  design  in  the  law.  Law  and  design  are  so 
far  from  being  mutually  exclusive  that,  in  truth,  they 
are  mutually  inclusive.  There  is  no  law  without  design; 
and  in  nature  the  design  of  the  law  is  worked  out  un- 
der the  law. 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  375 

VII.  Passing  from  general  design  to  special  design,  or 
the  design  supposed  to  be  revealed  in  particular  events, 
or  particular  correlations  of  material  parts,  the  foremost 
question  arising  concerns  the  meaning  of  the  metaphysical 
principle  of  design.  Now,  when  parts  are  coadjusted,  as 
in  any  mechanical  combination,  like  a  watch  or  a  human 
hand,  the  instructive  verdict  of  mankind  is  an  affirmation 
of  intention.  This  affirmation  is  prompted  by  the  adjust- 
ment of  part  to  part,  and  by  the  adjustment  of  the  whole 
to  its  result.  These  two  conceptions  must  be  kept  dis- 
tinct. Let  us  for  the  moment  leave  out  of  consideration 
the  question  of  design  in  the  result,  and  note  what  is 
implied  and  what  is  not  implied  in  the  affirmation  of  de- 
sign in  the  parts.  We  say  instinctively  that  the  coad- 
•justment  of  parts  implies  design;  but  —  1.  It  does  not 
imply  that  the  action  of  the  parts  was  designed  to  pro- 
duce any  result.  2.  It  does  not  imply  that  the  result, 
if  any,  is  useful,  beautiful,  or  any  otherwise  characterized. 
3.  It  does  not  imply  that  the  result,  if  any,  is  either 
comprehended  or  comprehensible.  4.  It  does  not  imply 
that  the  adjustment  is  something  wholly  comprehensible. 
5.  It  does  not  imply  that  the  cause  of  the  adjustment  is 
either  finite  or  not  finite.  6.  It  does  not  imply  that  the 
conformations  and  collocations  in  the  adjustment  have 
been  effected  by  any  particular  instruments,  or  according 
to  any  particular  method.  They  may  have  been  molded, 
hewed,  carved,  turned,  or  grown, —  it  is  all  the  same. 

These  eliminations  are  of  the  utmost  importance  ;  but 
a  careful  appeal  to  consciousness  demonstrates  that  our 
verdict  is  rendered  without  the  least  regard  to  any  con- 
sideration save  the  fact  of  coadjustment, —  mechanical  co- 
adjustment,  in  which  the  action  of  one  part  is  continually 


376  SPARKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

reciprocated  by  the  action  of  another  part.  Isolating  the 
question  of  design  from  these  customaiy  entanglements, 
it  is  apparent  that,  when  a  case  of  mechanical  coadjust- 
ment  is  presented,  it  is  not  pertinent  to  consider  whether 
it  is  a  product  of  man  or  of  nature.  It  either  implies 
design  absolutely,  or  it  does  not  imply  design  at  all.  The 
same  combination  cannot  imply  design  when  viewed  as  a 
human  product,  and  have  no  significance  or  allowable  in- 
terpretation when  viewed  as  a  natural  product.  The  con- 
sideration that  it  has  come  into  existence. by  a  method  of 
evolution,  or  by  any  other  method,  is  as  alien  from  the 
question  as  if  the  method  had  been  by  an  envelope-making 
machine,  or  by  carpentry,  or  smithery.  It  does  not  add 
to  the  conclusiveness  of  the  statement  to  suggest  that  a 
method  of  evolution  may  and  must  have  been  established 
by  design,  and  that  consequently  the  ends  which  it  at- 
tained may  and  must  have  been  designed,  both  in  general 
and  in  particular.  The  suggestion,  however,  is  valid,  and 
is  perfectly  in  parallelism  with  the  inference  of  design 
directly  from  adjustment.  If  the  recognition  of  design, 
therefore,  is  legitimate,  without  any  regard  to  the  teleo- 
logical  significance  of  the  products  of  adjustment,  the 
most  radical  profession  of  nescience  of  the  "  designs  of 
Nature"  may  admit  that  some  design  is  revealed  in  the 
simple  fact  of  structural  adjustment,  even  if  it  were  not 
designed  to  produce  what  it  produces. 

This  is  not  that  remote  and  hypothetical  admission  of 
design  which  recognizes  simply  the  possibility  that  the 
whole  system  of  nature  may  exist  for  some  design;  but 
it  is  an  affirmative  and  necessary  recognition  of  design 
as  the  logical  antecedent  of  all  coordinations  interpreta- 
ble  in  terms  of  intelligence. 


THE   METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  377 

VIII.  Besides  mutual  adjustment  of  structural  parts, 
we  may  consider  the  meaning  of  adjustments  to  a  gen- 
eral concept.  All  that  we  know  of  fundamental  plans 
of  structure  in  the  organic  world  is  but  a  body  of  facts 
exemplifying  adjustment  of  parts,  not  alone  to  each  other, 
but  to  an  archetypal  conception, —  an  intelligential  stand- 
ard. It  is  frequently  suggested  that  fundamental  rela-  • 
tionships  have  resulted  from  the  law  of  heredity,  with 
progressive  divergence.  That,  probably,  is  a  valid  scien- 
tific account  to  give  of  what  have  been  styled  plans  of 
organization;  and  every  one  is  free  to  rest  in  the  finality 
of  science.  But  if  our  minds  are  so  constituted  that  we 
irresistibly  conclude  design  from  coordination,  regardless 
of  the  instrumentality  or  means  by  which  the  coordina- 
tion becomes  expressed  in  matter,  then  heredity  with  di- 
vergence is  not  an  ultimate  explanation,  and  every  man 
is  at  liberty,  without  reproach,  to  pass  beyond  the  pale 
of  science,  and  recognize  heredity  as  a  thoughtful  deter- 
mination fixed  for  the  purpose  of  introducing  order  and 
method  into  the  organic  world  as  we  find  them.  So  the 
mathematical  order  of  the  solar  system  is  explicable  in 
scientific  terms  by  ascribing  it  to  the  cooling  of  a  primi- 
tive nebula;  but  the  forces  engaged  in  the  evolution  of  a 
planetary  system  must  be  rationally  conceived  as  merely 
the  instruments  which  work  out  symmetrical  results  co- 
ordinated to  a  general  concept  or  plan.  If,  finally,  the 
deepest  law  of  nature  is  the  law  of  evolution,  we  may 
recognize  that  as  the  all-embracing  principle  under  which 
events  emerge  into  being;  but  reason  can  never  be  di- 
vested of  the  simple  conviction  that  events  coordinated 
on  so  comprehensive  a  scale,  and  coordinated  to  so  vast 
a  scheme,  give  expression  to  purpose  equally  vast  and 


378  SPAKKS   FROM   A   GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

comprehensive.  The  explanations  of  science  are  held  to 
be  valid,  but  they  do  not  go  far  enough;  they  are  not 
ultimate  explanations.  By  the  inherent  principles  of  our 
mental  being  we  postulate  and  posit  motive  and  agency 
behind  the  last  explanation  of  science. 

IX.  As  design  is  the  necessary  implication  of  parts  co- 
ordinated to  each  other,  or  to  a  general  concept,  so  meta- 
physical cause  is  the  only  rational  explanation  of  those 
ultimate  physical  antecedents  which  belong  to  the  cate- 
gory of  sub-causes  or  scientific  causes.  Of  metaphysical 
cause  science  professes  to  have  no  knowledge,  holding  that 
invariable  antecedence  is  the  scientific  conception  of  caus- 
ation. But,  manifestly,  no  phenomenon  comes  into  ex- 
istence because  another  phenomenon  precedes.  The  pre- 
cedence is  the  sign  of  antecedent  efficiency.  So  the  law 
under  which  a  phenomenon  arises  is  modal,  not  causal, 
and  implies  prior  ordination,  as  the  subordinated  event 
implies  transcendent  causation.  The  conditio  sine  qua  non 
of  a  phenomenon  is  not  its  essential  cause,  but  the  condi- 
tion of  the  operativeness  of  a  certain  law  which  expresses 
a  method  of  activity  of  essential  cause.  The  notion  of 
metaphysical  cause  is  thei'efore  the  underlying  ground  of 
all  the  ultimate  conception  of  science. 

It  is  well  understood  that  even  metaphysical  —  that  is, 
ultimate  and  essential  —  cause  becomes  efficient  and  actual 
only  under  the  concurrence  of  certain  conditions,  which, 
because  they  contribute  to  the  result,  may  be  denominated 
concauses.  We  may  define  cause,  if  we  please,  as  the 
whole  body  of  coexistences  without  which  a  result  would 
not  exist.  This  is  a  complex  but  perfectly  intelligible 
conception.  It  may  be  best  to  employ  the  true  cause  in 
such  a  sense.  But  then  we  have  no  name  for  that  one 


THE   METAPHYSICS  OP  SCIENCE.  379 

of  the  coexistences  which  is  the  ultimate,  self-sustained 
and  direct  efficiency  in  the  effectuation.  For  instance,  a 
seed  placed  in  the  ground  germinates  and  grows  into  a 
cabbage.  Of  course  the  totality  of  causation  concerned 
embraces  all  the  causes,  concauses  and  conditions  which 
have  to  coact  and  coexist  during  the  process  of  germina- 
tion and  growth.  They  consist,  in  part,  of  a  duly  organ- 
ized and  living  seed,  a  location  in  the  soil,  the  presence 
of  moisture  and  light,  and  the  activity  of  certain  physio- 
logical forces  in  the  seed  and  developing  tissues  of  the 
plant.  In  a  certain  sense  moisture  is  causal  and  light 
is  causal,  and  vegetable  aliment  is  causal.  Their  caus- 
ality becomes  active,  however,  only  on  the  condition  of 
an  organized  seed,  and  on  the  condition  that  it  finds 
lodgment  in  the  soil,  and  on  the  condition  that  the  grub 
is  kept  away.  While  thus  certain  concurrences  are  con- 
causal,  others  are  conditioning.  More  immediately  causal, 
but  conditioned  on  all  the  concausation  and  conditions 
just  mentioned,  is  the  physical  or  physiological  action 
which  reveals  itself  in  the  absorption  of  solutions  and 
gases  from  the  soil  and  the  atmosphere,  the  chemical 
compounding  and  preparation  of  them  in  protoplasm  and 
the  various  juices,  the  conveyance  of  them  to  the  various 
parts  of  the  growing  plant,  and  the  exhalation  of  vapor 
and  gases  which  are  useless  to  the  plant.  It  is  certainly 
in  these  activities  that  we  approach  nearest  to  the  seat 
of  operation  of  efficient  cause.  But  while  these  involve 
such  causation  as  is  expressed  by  capillarity,  endosmose, 
chemism  and  exhalation,  a  moment's  consideration  shows 
that,  after  all,  these  are  but  instrumental  agencies  or  sub- 
causes.  These  physiological  movements  and  changes  are 
not  self- maintained;  they  are  not  ultimate  causalities; 


380  SPARKS  FROM   A  GEOLOGIST'S  HAMMER. 

they  are  caused;  they  have  to  be  explained  and  accounted 
for;  they  imply  some  real  cause  whose  bidding  they  exe- 
cute. Still  more  manifest  is  this  when  we  note  the  plan 
and  method  and  correlation  of  their  activity.  They  build; 
they  create  mathematical  forms  and  mechanical  structures; 
they  fit  part  to  part;  they  think,  they  foresee,  they  pur- 
pose,—  unless  they  are  the  mere  servants  of  some  intelli- 
gent cause.  That  is  the  CAUSE,  therefore, —  ultimate,  self- 
sustained,  voluntary  and  discerning,  and  working  toward 
ultimate  and  thinkable  ends, —  which  employs  these  instru- 
mentalities under  the  concurring  conditions  and  coactions, 
to  select,  move  and  dispose  material  with  reference  to  the 
organized  result, —  guided  while  it  acts  physically  on  mat- 
ter, by  a  clear  conception  of  a  structural  end,  and  an 
intelligent  selection  and  arrangement  of  material  suited 
most  perfectly  for  the  realization  of  the  end. 

The  notion  of  metaphysical  cause,  in  spite  of  the  formal 
restriction  of  the  logic  of  science,  has  found  constant  ex- 
pression in  scientific  language  under  the  name  of  force. 
This,  like  the  assumed  atom  and  molecule  of  physics,  the 
ethereal  medium  and  the  ultimate  incompressibility  of 
matter  is  a  purely  metaphysical  conception.  It  is  a  name 
which  the  necessities  of  thinking  have  impelled  us  to  adopt 
for  the  efficiency  transmitted  from  or  through  the  phe- 
nomenon which  stands  in  the  place  of  invariable  antece- 
dent. Yet  the  ordinary  use  of  this  term  in  the  pages  of 
science  leaves  questions  still  deeper  which  offer  themselves 
as  subjects  of  analytic  thought.  Is  force  an  entity  or  an 
attribute?  If  an  entity,  is  it  self-acting  or  subordinated? 
If  subordinated,  what  is  the  nature  of  the  power  which 
subordinates  it?  If  self-acting,  then  the  discernment  and 
design  revealed  in  the  results  of  its  activity  are  attri- 


THE    METAPHYSICS    OF   SCIENCE.  381 

butes  which  characterize  a  demiurge.  But  if  we  say  force 
is  an  entity  which  produces  results,  what  is  the  means 
by  which  it  produces  them?  Are  not  all  results  produced 
by  force,  and  is  not  our  reasoning  thus  reduced  to  the 
proposition  that  the  entity  force  employs  force  to  produce 
results?  This  proposition  is  unintelligible,  and  shows  that 
the  conception  of  force  as  an  entity  is  absurd.  Force  is 
an  attribute. 

But  if  force  must  be  conceived  as  an  attribute,  what 
is  the  nature  of  its  subject?  What  is  it  which  exerts 
or  manifests  force?  To  say  that  the  attribute  force  exerts 
itself  is  to  make  it  both  attribute  and  subject.  Something 
which  is  not  force,  but  which  is  capable  of  exerting  force, 
is  therefore  necessarily  implied  in  the  conception  of  force. 
Is  matter  the  subject?  Then,  first,  it  is  a  subject  which 
thinks,  and  selects,  and  purposes;  for  the  results  of  force 
are  thoughtful,  and  selective,  and  purposive,  and  matter 
does  thus  possess  a  "  power  and  potency  "  of  psychic  results. 
But,  secondly,  we  are  not  certain  that  matter  possesses  a 
special  subjective  nature.  We  only  know  matter  phe- 
nomenally, and  it  may  easily  be  that  phenomena  constitute 
all  there  is  of  matter  in  itself.  Yet  phenomena  are  mani- 
festations of  something  possessing  the  power  to  produce 
them.  The  phenomena  which  we  cognize  as  matter  are 
manifestations  of  force.  If  there  be  no  subject-matter 
there  must  be  some  other  subject  revealing  itself  in  the 
phenomena,  which  we  group  under  the  designation  of 
matter.  There  must  be  somewhere  a  matter-subject.  We 
are  driven,  then,  to  the  recognition  of  an  intelligent  sub- 
ject as  the  ground  of  the  attribute  of  force,  manifesting 
its  activities  in  the  being  of  what  we  call  matter,  as  well 
as  in  the  changes  which  are  impressed  upon  matter. 


382  SPARKS   FROM    A   GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

The  inquiry  does  not  end  even  here;  for  it  remains  to 
ascertain  what  is  the  mode  of  origin  of  force  from  its 
subject.  What  is  the  method  by  which  the  subject  reveals 
the  attribute  of  force?  Is  forceful  emanation  from  the 
subject  an  unconscious  and  continuous  necessity  of  its 
being,  or  is  it  a  conscious  and  voluntary  activity?  If 
necessary,  then  some  higher  power  has  imposed  the  ne- 
cessity, and  the  supposed  force  is  an  effect,  instead  of  a 
prime  efficiency;  if  unconscious,  then  some  higher  intelli- 
gence directs  according  to  the  laws  of  conscious  thought, 
and  the  supposed  subject  has  not  the  attributes  of  the 
force-subject;  for  coordination  of  products  implies  at  least 
two  things  consciously  apprehended,  both  in  their  sepa- 
rateness  and  in  their  relation  ;  unconscious  intelligence 
is  a  nugatory  expression,  for  consciousness  is  the  prime 
moment  of  intelligence;  intelligential  action  in  an  uncon- 
scious agent  implies  the  control  of  a  conscious  intelligence. 
If,  on  the  contrary,  forceful  manifestations  are  effected 
through  the  method  of  volition,  then  the  subject  which 
constitutes  the  ground  of  all  cosmical  force  is  possessed 
of  will  as  well  as  intellect  and  susceptibility  to  motive, 
and  is  consequently  a  personal  entity, —  an  entity  thinking, 
feeling  and  willing  with  reference  to  that  which  is  object- 
ive to  itself. 

At  this  ultimate  stadium  of  analytic  thought,  we  are 
confronted  by  a  truth  which  staggers  and  awes  us  by  its 
import.  Instead  of  finding  ourselves  authorized  by  science 
to  remand  the  supernatural  beyond  the  limits  of  the  mate- 
rial world,  we  are  constrained  by  philosophy  to  recognize 
in  the  material  world  only  that  efficiency  which  has  been 
designated  supernatural.  Natural  efficiency  is  only  the 
dream  of  ignorance.  All  force  is  intelligential.  The  sys- 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  383 

tern  of  Nature  is  merely  the  theater  of  its  activity  in 
human  times  and  before  human  eyes.  If  the  words  "  super- 
natural "  and  "  creative  "  possess  any  significance,  they  mean 
only  an  extraordinary,  or  hitherto  unnoticed,  mode  of  action 
of  supreme  efficiency,  and  not  an  intervention  in  a  scheme 
of  events  sustained  by  some  diverse  and  independent  causa- 
tion. The  contemplations  of  science  are  suited,  therefore, 
to  awaken  not  alone  the  imagination,  and  sentiments  of  the 
beautiful  and  sublime,  but  feelings,  also,  of  awe  and  rever- 
ence. The  world,  as  the  elder  Agassiz  so  eloquently  taught, 
is  the  theater  of  a  divine  activity,  and  an  intelligent  and 
perpetual  revelation  of  the  divine  Being  and  attributes. 

Thus  all  the  distinctive  doctrinal  enunciations  of  modern 
science  carry  implications  which  reach  beyond  the  peculiar 
domain  of  science.  This,  as  I  have  shown,  is  true  of  the 
assumption  that,  in  any  case,  observations  have  been  act- 
ually made;  that  phenomena  have  been  actually  cognized; 
that  there  is  any  objective  reality  concerned  in  the  cogni- 
tion of  phenomena;  that  principles  of  classification  underlie 
phenomena  ;  that  the  search  for  the  unification  of  phe- 
nomena is  not  vain;  that  the  progress  of  natural  events 
may  be  safely  traced  into  the  future  and  the  past;  that 
like  effects  may  be  expected  to  proceed  under  similar 
conditions,  from  like  causes;  that  natural  law  possesses 
validity,  and  secures  order  and  persistence  in  the  flow  of 
events.  These  universally  accepted  doctrines  of  science 
can  be  admitted  only  on  the  admission  that  all  the  testi- 
mony of  consciousness  is  valid;  that  the  truths  intuitively 
apprehended  in  reason  are  absolute  and  eternal;  that  the 
government  of  the  world  rests  on  a  rational  basis,  and 
that  events  are  to  be  interpreted  in  terms  of  intelligence; 
that  law  and  order  are  the  expressions  of  intelligence; 


384  gPARKS   FROM    A    GEOLOGIST'S   HAMMER. 

that  uniformity  of  succession  is  only  the  phenomenal  sym- 
bol of  underlying  efficiency;  that  in  the  midst  of  all  the 
concausation  accompanying  an  effect  there  is  one  coexist- 
ence which  must  be  viewed  as  efficient,  metaphysical 
cause;  that  all  force  rests  back  ultimately  in  a  subject 
which  possesses  the  attribute^  of  intelligent  personality. 
The  principle  of  continuity  is  a  metaphysical  principle, 
but  it  underlies  the  deepest  and  broadest  of  the  funda- 
mental doctrines  of  modern  science.  The  phenomena  cor- 
related in  so-called  evolutionary  series  rest  on  and  express 
this  principle.  It  guides  us  in  tracing  the  forms  of  inor- 
ganic matter  from  a  primitive  homogeneous  state,  and 
also  the  forms  of  organic  matter  from  a  primitive  vitalized 
plasma.  The  evolutionary  arrangement  of  phenomena 
may,  indeed,  be  ascertained  empirically,  but  the  principle 
of  continuity  points  to  the  rule  of  arrangement  and  the 
bond  of  union.  So  science  may  empirically  search  out  and 
ascertain  the  place  and  mode  and  material  causation  of 
origins,  but  essential  causes  lie  quite  within  the  region 
of  the  metaphenomenal. 

It  appears,  therefore,  as  Lewes  states,  that  "  the  funda- 
mental ideas  of  modern  science  are  as  transcendental  as 
any  of  the  axioms  of  ancient  philosophy,"  and  that  "  every 
physical  problem  involves  metempirical  elements."  Be- 
sides the  metaphysical  implications  of  the  current  doctrines 
of  science,  all  its  fundamental  conceptions  —  self,  substance, 
cause,  force,  life,  order,  law,  purpose,  relation,  unity,  iden- 
tity, continuity,  evolution,  natural  selection,  species,  genus, 
order,  class  —  are  purely  metaphysical  concepts  or  ideas. 
These  are  not  the  objects  of  sensible  perception,  like  the 
phenomenal  data  of  science,  but  are  apprehended  by  the 
rational  insight.  They  have  no  legitimate  place  in  that 


THE    METAPHYSICS   OF   SCIENCE.  385 

narrow  sphere  which  science  sometimes  mistakenly  allots 
to  itself.  Many  of  them  are  the  logical  antecedents  and 
necessary  conditions  of  the  possibility  of  experience.  They 
precede  and  legitimate  all  our  cognitions  and  judgments 
concerning  the  sensible  world,  and  act  as  the  constitutive 
and  coordinating  principles  among  our  perceptions.  They 
render  possible  the  logical  contemplation  and  intelligent 
penetration  of  nature.  They  constitute  the  bond  of  consist- 
ence and  coherence  in  the  fabric  of  science,  and  illume  the 
system  of  the  cosmos  with  the  supernal  light  of  thought. 

The  foregoing  suggestions  are  intended  to  reveal  clearly 
to  the  intelligent  reader  the  existence  of  a  realm  of  legiti- 
mate thought  deeper  than  the  data  of  physical  science; 
presupposed,  indeed,  by  all  the  logic  of  science,  and  sole 
sponsor  for  all  the  validity  which  the  principles  of  science 
can  ever  acquire.  The  effect  is  not  to  impair  the  authority 
of  science,  but  to  rationalize  it,  and  purge  it  of  empiricism 
and  dogmatism.  The  moral  is  that  science,  from  its  plat- 
form, is  not  competent  to  utter  conclusions  on  themes 
which  lie  over  in  the  realm  of  metaphysics  ;  but  when 
it  gives  utterances,  either  affirmative  or  negative,  on  ques- 
tions essentially  metaphenomenal,  it  must  proceed  from 
the  axioms  of  metaphysics,  and  not  from  the  inductions 
based  on  sensible  phenomena. 
25 


INDEX. 


Aar  glacier,  16,  18,  52. 

Aar  valley  and  river,  16. 

Acceleration  of  development, 
351. 

Adhemar  cited,  185,248. 

Aeta,  165. 

Agassiz,  A.,  on  echinoderms, 
842. 

Agassiz,  L.,  16,  18,  20,  52,  342; 
burial  and  epitaph  of,  19;  on 
ice  periods,  180;  on  Darwin- 
ism, 312 ;  on  the  interpretation 
of  the  world,  383. 

Age,  beauty  of,  115. 

Age  of  the  world,  196. 

Agricultural  college,  259. 

Aiguille,  or  Aiguilles,  25,  32,  48; 
des  Varens,  28 ;  du  Gouter,  32, 
49 ;  de  Charmoz,  33,  35, 37, 49 ; 
du  Dm,  35,  48 ;  de  Talefre,  30, 
89 ;  Verte,  45,  64 ;  Bochard,  45 ; 
de  Greppon,  49;  de  Saussure, 
66;  du  Midi,  66,68,76;  de  la 
Tour,  72 ;  of  Ruitors,  89 ;  du 
Miage,  97 ;  cause  of,  40. 

Airy,  G.  B.,  cited,  179. 

Alabama,  138,  144,  147. 

Alaseia  river,  241. 

Alaska,  124,  141. 

Albany,  N.  Y.,  138. 

Aleut,  141. 

Aleutian,  124;  continent,  141. 

Alleghanies,  123,  130,  142;  low- 
ering of,  127,  144,  145;  sedi- 
ments from,  132;  climate  of, 
209. 

Alleghany  river,  149. 

Alpine  glaciers  rich  in  sugges- 
tions, 168 ;  resist  summer  heat, 
194. 

Alps,  geology  of,  53 ;  Roman  rel- 
ics in,  30,  60  ;  upheaval  of, 


Altitude  and  temperature,  206. 

Amazons,  river  of,  148. 

America,  South,  139. 

American  Arctic  Archipelago, 
199. 

American  Association,  171,  301. 

Americans  abroad,  34. 

Ammieuus  Marcellinus,  143. 

Andaman  Islands,  165. 

Andes,  loO,  141,  142. 

Angeville,  Mademoiselle  H.  d' 
97. 

Antarctic  continent,  189. 

Anticipation,  scientific,  362. 

Anticosti,  124. 

Antilles,  139. 

Aosta,  valley  of,  89,  94. 

Apennines,  63. 

Apollo  Belvedere,  115. 

Appalachians,  127.  See,  also, 
"  Alleghanies." 

Appleton,  214. 

Appropriations  for  Michigan  sur- 
veys, 257. 

Arago,  cited,  183,  185. 

Aral  Sea,  156,  157. 

Archrean  land,  137,  138.  See, 
also,  "  Laurentide"  and  "  Lau- 
rentian." 

Arch  at  foot  of  Glacier  des  Bois, 
52. 

Architecture  and  evolution,  318. 

Arenton,  Jean  d',  61. 

Aristophanes  quoted,  114. 

Aristotle  cited,  158,  324. 

Arkwright,  Capt.,  81. 

Arpenaz,  cascade  of,  28. 

Arve,  27,  28,  51,  77. 

Arveiron,  50,  51,  77. 

Aryans  and  glacial  period,  245. 

Aryena-Vaejo,  246  ;  compared 
•with  Eden,  246. 

Ascensionists,  96,  97. 

Ascent  of  Montanvert,  33,  34;  to- 
ward Charmoz,  37. 


INDEX. 


Ascent  of  Mont  Blanc,  56,  59 
seq. ;  motives  to,  59 ;  efforts  to- 
ward, 63,  64,79,  J)l ;  repetitions 
of,  96.  See,  also,  "  De  Saussure  " 
and  "  Balm  at." 

Assumptions  intuitively  made, 
364  seq.,  383,  384. 

Astronomical  causes  of  glacia- 
tion,  182. 

Athabasca,  195. 

Atheism  not  attributable  to  Hux- 
ley, 320;  nor  to  evolutionists 
in  general,  327,  332 ;  supposed 
promoted  by  science,  361^  a 
logical  impossibility, 

Atlantis,  142. 

Auburn  cemetery,  18. 

Australians,  140,  165. 

Austria,  181. 

Avnlanche,  80. 

Azof,  Sea  of,  157. 

Aztecs,  166. 


Baer,  von,  cited,  157. 

Bagley,  Col.,  96. 

Balm  at,  Jacques,  40, 64, 79 ;  story 
of,  91  seq. 

Balme,  27. 

Baltic  Hea,  167. 

Barns,  Henry,  265. 

Bar  of  Mississippi,  149. 

Basel,  16. 

Basin  of  middle  Tennessee,  147. 

Basin  ranges,  129. 

Beau,  86;  diary  of,  86. 

Bear  island,  180. 

Beautiful,  the,  is  good,  104;  is 
true,  105. 

Beauty  promotes  human  happi- 
ness, 100,  101;  fills  the  world, 
101,  383;  nature  of,  103;  where 
found,  105  seq.;  of  nature,  105; 
of  storm  at  sea,  108,  109;  of 
humanity,  110;  of  woman,  not 
wholly  physical,  112;  may  be 
cultivated,  113 ;  vain  appli- 
ances of,  113;  of  man,  114;  of 
age,  115;  of  motion,  116  ;  of 
sounds,  116;  of  truth,  118;  of 
virtue,  119;  of  sorrow,  120. 


Beaver  islands,  214. 

Behring's  strait,  141,  166,  240. 

Belle  Plaine,  262. 

Bells,  beauty  of  sounds  of,  117. 

Berbers,  144. 

Berlin,  181. 

Bernina,  Monte,  54. 

Berosus  cited,  158. 

Bex,  23. 

Biblical  story  of  creation,  327. 

Bickmore,  A.  S.,  cited,  163. 

Biel,  lake  of,  20. 

Birds,  variations  among,  342. 

Black  races,  wanderings  of,  165. 

Black  Sea,  15(5. 

Blaire  and  the  Mer  de  Glace,  36. 

Blatiere,  49. 

Blodget,  L.,  cited,  201. 

Bois,  Glacier  des,  31,  47;  village 

of,  50. 

Bonneville,  27. 
Bonnivard,  22. 
Borneo,  175. 
Bosphorus,  156. 
Bossons,  Glacier  dcs,  30,  31,  57, 

67,  68,  70,  73, 80 ;  motion  of,  56. 
Boston,  208. 
Brachiopods,  variations  among, 

342. 

Bravais,  90. 

Brazil,  glaciation  in,  180. 
Bre"vcnt,  82,  48,  71. 
Brevoort,  Miss,  97. 
Brewer,  T.  M.,  342. 
Brines,  origin  of,    in  Michigan, 

261,     263,     271;     Houghton's 

views     on,     276;     llubbard's 

views  on,  276. 

Bronze  in  Great  Britain,  167. 
Brussels  to  Strasbourg,  13. 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  116. 
Buet,  25. 
Buffalo,  210. 
Butterworth,  R.  E.,  salt  well  of, 

262. 
Byron,  Lord,  quoted,  20,  23,  33, 

122;  villa  of,  22. 


Cabins  of  the  Grands  Mulcts,  77. 
Caillet,  fountain  of,  33. 


INDEX. 


Calms,  equatorial,  192. 

Calotte,  North,  69,  87 ;  of  Mont 
Blanc,  95. 

Calvin,  108. 

Cambodia  river,  164. 

Canada,  136.  See,  also,  "  Lauren- 
tide,"  etc. 

Canaries,  143,  144. 

Candolle,  A.  cle,  342. 

Cape  Breton,  124,  137,  268. 

Carboniferous  Age,  128. 

Caribbean  Sea,  139,  193;  conti- 
nent, 139. 

Carpenter,  W.  B.,  cited,  190,  192. 

Catastrophes  on  Mont  Blanc,  80 
seq.,84,86,  87,  97. 

Catskills,  126;  denudation 
around,  145. 

Caucasus,  157, 160,  246. 

Causation,  supernatural,  360. 

Causes,    efficient,    of   evolution, 

352,  377,  378,  379,  880;  impli- 
cations of,  353. 

Causes,  final,  in  evolution,  354, 

375,  376. 
Causes,   scientific    and   rational, 

353,  372,  378. 
Cecrops,  142. 
Celebes,  16i. 
Ceram,  165. 

Cereus  giganteus,  130. 

Cevennes,  63. 

Chablais,  21. 

Challenger,  143. 

Chalmers  on  Genesis,  327. 

Chamonix,  travel  to,  26,  27,30; 
description  of,  31;  seen  from 
P Angle,  38. 

Chapeau  of  Mer  de  Glace,  48. 

Charmoz,  Aiguille  de,  33,  54; 
ascent  toward,  37,  38,  39. 

Charpentier,  Jean  de,  19. 

Chautauqua  cliffs,  134,  145. 

Chemical  homologues  and  evolu- 
tion, 317. 

Chicago,  135,  205;  Academy  of 
Sciences  of,  266. 

Childhood,  beauty  of,  110. 

Chillon,  Caslle  of,  21,  22,  108. 

China,  148;  hydrographic 
changes  in,  160. 

Chinese  records  of  floods,  159. 


Chronology,  geological,  169,  248, 
251. 

Climate,  constituents  of,  200. 

Climate,  influenced  by  Lake 
Michigan,  202;  by  Saginaw 
Bay,  222;  by  Lake  Superior, 
223. 

Climate  of  lake  region,  201,  207. 

Climates,  geological,  175  seq. ; 
secular  fluctuations  in,  176. 

Clock  in  Strasbourg  Cathedral, 
14. 

Clouds,  attracted  by  mountains, 
27;  enveloping  the  tourist,  38. 

Coadjustment  implies  design, 
375. 

Coal  period,  144. 

Cognition  in  relation  to  beauty, 
104. 

Coin,  quasi,  from  Illinois  prai- 
ries, 170. 

Coleridge,  S.  T.,  quoted,  57,  69. 

Colorado,  plains,  128,  129,  131, 
132,  147;  river,  130. 

Coucause,  378,  379. 

Concise,  20. 

Conditions  of  evolution,  349,  378, 
379. 

Conditions  of  knowledge,  364. 

Confucius,  150. 

Conglomerates  and  glaciation, 
178,  179. 

Conic  sections  and  evolution, 
318. 

Coukling,  Edgar,  226. 

Conrad,  T.  A.,  cited,  178. 

Continent,  primordial,  124,  125; 
American,  worn  out,  130. 

Continents,  old  age  of,  122; 
stumps  of,  124,  141 ;  materials 
of,  worked  over,  125,  132,  134; 
renovated,  131,  153;  obliter- 
ated, 134,  139, 140, 141 ;  erosion 
of,  148 ;  rate  of  erosion  of,  149, 
196.  See,  also,  "  Denudation." 

Converging  palseoutological 
lines,  340. 

Conviction,  grounds  of,  364. 

Cool  ing  of  earth,  153. 

Cooper,  Peter,  116. 

Cope,  E.  D.,  254. 

Corcier,  Abb6  of,  22. 


390 


INDEX. 


Corea,  163. 

Corkindale,  86. 

Corridor  on  Mont  Blanc,  54,  69, 
79,  84,  94,  95. 

Cote  d'Or,  63. 

Courmayer,  94. 

Couttet,  Sylvain,  57,  71, 81, 82, 84. 

Creation  a  necessary  concept, 
329. 

Creation  compatible  with  evolu- 
tion of  idea,  312,  313;  and  of 
material  forms,  327,  332,  383. 

Creation  theory  as  presented  by 
Huxley,  323 ;  criticism  of,  328. 

Crepin,  cascade  of,  30. 

Cretaceous,  147. 

Crevasses,  41,  42,  57;  effects  of, 
72;  sounds  from  formation  of, 
75,  93 ;  on  Mont  Blanc,  79. 

Croll  on  continental  denudation, 
150;  on  pebble  beds,  178;  on 
cause  of  glaciation,  185  seq. 

Crust,  influence  of,  on  climate, 
175. 

Cuba,  139. 

Cumrning,  cited,  177. 

Currents,  oceanic,  theories  of,  190 
seq. ;  caused  by  winds,  192  seq. 

Currier,  A.  O.,  263. 

Cushman,  Charlotte,  quoted  109. 

Cnvier,  George,  250. 

Cycads,  127. 

Cyclopes,  143. 


Daintree  cited,  178. 

Dakota,  131. 

Dana,  J.  D.,  cited,  124,  169,  269. 

Dangers  from  glaciers,  51,  72,  79 

seq. ;   region  of,  88.    See,  also, 

"  Catastrophes." 
Danube,  157. 
Dard,  Cascade  of,  56,  70. 
Darwin,  C.,  cited,  342. 
Dai-win,  G.  H.,  cited,  179. 
Darwinism,  weak  points  of,  307. 
Dawson,  J.  W.,  cited,  178,  180. 
Delaware,  210. 
Delta  of  Mississippi,  149, 150;  of 

Nile,  150. 
Deluge,  158,  248. 


Democritus  on  creation,  324. 

Denmark,  210. 

Denudation,  amount  of,  meas- 
ured, 123,  135;  evidences  of, 
134,  145,  146,  148;  rate  of,  141), 
196. 

Descent  of  elephants,  252. 

Desertas,  144. 

Designs  in  nature,  314,  354,  374, 
375;  metaphysical  principle  ol, 
375,  376. 

Desor,  E.,  18. 

Deukalion,  deluge  of,  159. 

Diligence,  26,  27. 

Diodati,  22,  108. 

Dish-shaped  formations,  267,  272. 

Dnieper,  157. 

Dolfuss-Ausset,  18,  52. 

Dome  du  Gouter,  32. 

Don  river,  157. 

Dove  cited,  194. 

Dravidians,  140. 

Drayson,  Col.,  cited,  186. 

Drift  materials,  146.  See,  also, 
"  Moraines." 

Dromedary,  hump  of,  on  Mont 
Blanc,  54,  65,  69,  79. 

Dru,  Aiguille  du,  35,  48,  54. 

Druids,  143. 

Dubois,  W.  E.,  cited,  172. 

Dug-out,  306. 

Duluth,  210. 

Dumas  quoted,  92. 

Durier,  quoted,  62 ;   cited,  82,  88. 

Duroford,  80. 

Dutton,  C.  E.,  cited,  129. 


East  India  islands,  140. 

Eccentricity  at  maximum,  186. 

Eccentricity  of  earth's  orbit  and 
glaciation,  185. 

Echinoderms,  variations  among, 
342. 

Elburz  mountains,  157. 

Eleatics,  on  creation,  324. 

Elephants,  fossil,  240  ;  living, 
248 ;  genealogy  of,  252 

Embryological  evidence,  343 ; 
clinches  the  argument  for  evo- 
lution, 346. 


INDEX. 


391 


Embryonic  stages,  344;  paral- 
lel in  different  species,  345; 
parallel  in  living  adults,  345; 
parallel  in  extinct  succession, 
346. 

Empire  State,  126. 

Empirical  data  not  sufficient  to 
constitute  knowledge,  358. 

English  people  abroad,  34. 

Environment  considered,  350. 

Epicurus  on  creation,  324 

Erechtheus,  142. 

Erosion  in  Wyoming,  148 ;  rate  of, 
149.  See,  also,  "  Denudation." 

Eskimo,  141. 

Eternity  of  world  not  admissible, 
324. 

Euxine,  157.  See.  also  "  Black 
Sea." 

Evauston,  215. 

Evolution,  morphological  evi- 
dence of,  333;  palreontological 
evidence  of,  338;  variatioual 
evidence  of,  341 ;  embryologi- 
cal  evidence  of,  343;  summa- 
tion of  evidence  of,  347;  does 
not  reach  ulterior  questions, 
349. 

Evolution  of  proboscidian  type, 
252;  of  horse  type  in  America, 
304 ;  of  water-vehicles,  306 ;  of 
idea,  in  distinction  from  mate- 
rial continuity,  309,  312,  315- 
318 ;  compatible  with  creation, 
327, 332, 383 ;  conditions  of,  349 ; 
efficient  causes  of,  352;  volition 
and  intellect  in,  353;  final 
cause  in, 353;  ethical  influence 
of  doctrine  of,  355,  357;  only  a 
scientific  explanation  of  phe- 
nomena, 377. 

Exhilaration  of  adventure,  39. 

Expenses  of  travel  in  investiga- 
tion, 301. 

Experts  to  be  suppressed,  300. 

Extreme  minima,  227. 

Extremes  of  climate  important, 


Falkland  islands,  195,  198. 
Faroe  islands,  167. 


Faults,  geological,  148. 

Ferney,  22,  108. 

Final  cause  in  evolution,  354. 

Finite  duration  of  world,  133. 

Finland,  169. 

Finsteraarhorn,  13,  54. 

Fire-formed  crust,  126,  135. 

Firn,  55,  66,  245. 

Fissures  as  outlets  for  brine,  262, 
276.  ' 

FK-gere,  32,  48,  71 ;  ascent  of,  53. 

Florida,  154. 

Fontaine  cited,  178. 

Forbes,  J.,  43. 

Force  a  metaphysics,  concept, 
380;  nature  of,  demanded,  380, 
381 ;  subject  of,  demanded,  381 ; 
how  revealed  by  its  subject, 
382. 

Forclaz,  Mont,  29 ;  col  de,  61. 

Formations  in  Grand  River  Salt 
Well,  258;  in  Lyon's  Salt  Well, 
259,  277;  new  determinations 
of,  260,  264;  in  Saginaw  Salt 
Well,  264;  of  Michigan,  267, 
268 ;  Houghton's  views  of,  277 ; 
Hubbard's  views  of,  279. 

Formosa,  162. 

Forshey,  Col.,  150. 

Fort,  Atkinson,  214  ;  Howard, 
214;  Ripley,  218;  Winnebago, 
214. 

Foster  and  Balfour,  cited,  345. 

Fraas,  Dr.  Oscar,  237,  238. 

France,  156,  166;  glaciated,  168. 

Frankland,  Dr.,  90. 

Frosts,  autumnal,  215;  vernal, 
217. 

Fruit-bearing  belt  of  Michigan, 
232. 

Fuchau,  161. 

G 

Galenstock,  23. 
Ganges,  150. 

Garibaldi,  Guiseppe,  116. 
Gaspe,  124. 
Gastaldi  cited,  178. 
Gaudry,  Albert,  cited,  177. 
Gazelle  ship,  144. 
Ge"ant,  dent  du,  25;  col  du,  90; 
glacier  du,  35,  43. 


392 


INDEX. 


Geikie,  A.,  cited,  177. 

Geikie,  J.,  cited,  166,  186. 

Genealogical  connection  of  types 
examined,  304  seq. ;  criticisms 
answered,  310  seq. 

Geneva,  21,22,  23,  107. 

Geological  history  progressing  in 
human  times,  155,  166,  167. 

Geological  quackery,  265,  286, 
287. 

Geological  seasons,  175,  seq.,  247. 

Geological  surveys,  in  Michigan, 
257 1  methods  of,  285,  287,  288, 
289, 290, 291,  295, 296 ;  ignorant 
interference  with,  286,  292-4, 
296,  297,  298;  results  of,  un- 
published, 297,  299. 

Geologic  time,  152. 

Gervais,  Paul,  303. 

Gettysburg  bank,  143. 

Glacial  period,  remoteness  of, 
196, 197,  247,  248. 

Glaciation  and  obliquity  of  axis, 
183;  and  precession  ot  equi- 
noxes, 184;  and  eccentricity  of 
orbit,  185. 

Glacier,  continental,  131,  247; 
reached  human  times,  168  ,245 ; 
formation  of,  in  Siberia,  244. 

Glacier  of  the  Aar,  16,  18,  52;  of 
the  Rhone,  23;  de  la  Gria,  30; 
cles  Bossons,  30,  56,  67,  70,  92; 
du  Taconnay,  30,  56,  66,  69; 
78;  du  Ge"ant,  35,  43;  de  Lt"ch- 
aud,  36;  de  Talefre,  36. 

Glaciers,  study  of,  16,  18;  theo- 
ries of,  19;  first  view  of,  30; 
blend  with  the  border-land,  41 ; 
motions  of,  52,  56,  75,  80;  dis- 
solution of,  52;  advance  and 
retreat  of,  52;  vestiges  of  pre- 
historic times,  168;  formation 
of,  244. 

GodefTroy,  19. 

Godwin-Austen,  cited,  178. 

Good,  the,  is  beautiful,  105. 

Gorringe,  Commander,  143. 

G6uter,  Aiguille  and  Dome  du, 
32,  49,  54,  65,  69,  71,  78,  82,  92. 

Graham  Land,  198. 

Grande,  crevasse,  80,  82,  84,  94; 
pente,  69,  86. 


Grandes  Monties,  69. 

Grand  Haven,  214,  215,  218,  221. 

Grand  Rapids,  215,  258;  Lyou's 
Salt  Well  at,  259,  262. 

Grand  River  Salt  Well  258. 

Grands  Jorasses,  35. 

Grands  Mulcts.    See  "  Mulets." 

Grandson,  21. 

Grand  Traverse,  216. 

Grasp  of  geologic  time,  152  seq., 
174. 

Gray,  A.,  cited,  342. 

Great  Britain,  124,168,  167;  geo- 
logical  changes  in,  167 ;  climate 
of,  194,  208. 

Greenland,  167,  168,  189. 

Greppon,  Aiguille  de,  49. 

Gria,  Glacier  de  la,  30. 

Grounds,  for  affirmation  and  de- 
nial, 365;  of  validity  of  sci- 
ence, 366. 

Guanches,  144. 

Guiana,  139. 

Guides  of  Chamonix,  32,  76,  89. 

Gulf  Stream,  193;  influence  of, 
on  climate,  194,  195. 

Guppy,  H.  B.,  cited,  162. 

Gutenberg,  14. 

Gypsum,  origin  of,  268,  269;  at 
Mackinac,  269;  at  Sandusky 
Bay,  269;  in  Central  New 
York,  269 ;  near  Tawas,  272. 

H 

Haeckel,  E.,  cited,  342,  345. 

Hair  of  mammoth,  242;  in  Lon- 
don, 243. 

Hall,  J.,  cited,  126, 279 ;  on  varia- 
bility, 343. 

Hamburg,  181. 

Hamel,  Dr.,  80. 

Hamilton,  Mrs.  T.,  97. 

Hamites,  144. 

Hangchau,  161. 

Harbors  on  east  shore  Lake 
Michigan,  230. 

Hartmann,  E.  von,  cited,  317. 

Haughton,  cited,  177,  179. 

Hayden,  F.  V.,  cited,  129. 

Henderson,  80. 

Henry,  Joseph,  20. 


INDEX. 


393 


Heredity,  opposes  evolution, 
313;  a  scientific  explanation 
of  plans,  377;  a  thoughtful 
determination,  377. 

Herodotus  cited,  156,  158. 

Herschel,  Caroline,  116. 

Herschel,  Sir  John,  cited,  180, 
183,  185. 

Himalayas,  142. 

Hindu-Kush,  246. 

Hindu,  records  of  deluge,  159. 

History  of  salt  enterprise  in 
Michigan,  256. 

Hoang-ho  river,  160,  161,  162. 

Hogg,  James,  quoted,  111. 

Holland,  166. 

Homer   quoted,   114;  cited,  144. 

Homology  in  water-craft,  306. 

Honan,  161. 

Horse-type  in  America,  302  seq. ; 
ranging  into  Europe,  303; 
enumeration  of  representatives 
of,  304. 

Hottentots,  140. 

Houghton,  Douglas,  geological 
researches  of,  256;  views  as- 
cribed to,  273;  incomplete 
knowledge  of,  274,  280. 

Howard,  97. 

Hubbard,  Bela,  on  salt  basins, 
275;  on  Michigan  geology,  279. 

Hudson  river,  145. 

Hugi,  18,  52. 

Hugo,  Victor,  116. 

Humanity,  beauty  of,  110. 

Huinber  river,  167. 

Humboldt,  A.  von,  cited,  183, 185, 
201. 

Humphreys  and  Abbott,  149, 150. 

Huxley,  T.  H.,  cited,  303,  304; 
lectures  of,  in  New  York,  319 
seq;  touching  creation  in  the 
true  sense,  321,  322;  concern- 
ing the  "  creation  theory,"  323 ; 
criticism  of,  324,  328;  change 
of  views  of,  332 ;  on  nisus,  352. 

Hwaiugan,  160. 

Hybridity,  fertile,  examples  of, 
342. 

Hydrographic  changes,  157,  160, 
161. 


Iberians,  144. 

Ice  Age,  176;  relics  of,  177;  re- 
moteness of,  196,  197. 

Ice  ages  of  earlier  times,  177; 
succession  of,  179,  181 ;  causes 
of,  assigned,  180. 

Ice  cap  about  pole,  197. 

Iceland,  167. 

Illinois,  128. 

Inclination  of  earth's  axis,  182. 

Indian,  American,  141,  166,  174; 
traditions  of  mastodon  and 
elephant,  251. 

Indiana,  128. 

Indo-Chinese  peninsula,  164. 

Indo-Malayan  Archipelago,  165. 

Induction  and  principle  of  caus- 
ality, 369. 

Inheritance  opposes  change,  313. 

Insects,  variations  among,  342. 

Instrumental  agency  in  causa- 
tion, 379,  380. 

Intellect  in  evolution,  353. 

Intensity  of  sun's  heat  varied  by 
distance,  187,  203 ;  and  by  ob- 
liquity, 204. 

Interglacial  periods,  199. 

Intuitions  trustworthy,  364. 

Ireland,  124,  137,  138. 

Islands  of  cold  or  heat,  220. 

Isothermal  chart  for  July,  218, 
for  January,  220;  for  mean 
minima,  225;  for  extreme 
minima,  227. 

Italy,  northern,  glaciated,  168; 
chilled  by  the  Alps,  181. 

Ivory  from  extinct  mammoths, 
241 ;  etched  by  prehistoric 
men,  247. 

Izdubar  legends,  159. 


Jamaica,  139. 

January  temperatures,  220. 

Japan,  141,  163. 

Jardin,  in  the  Alps,  89,  91. 

Jas,  emperor  of  China,  159. 

Java,  164. 


394 


Josephine  bank,  143. 
Judgment,  relation  of  to  beauty, 

103. 

July  temperatures,  218. 
Junction    in     ascent    of    Mont 

Blanc,  73. 
Jungfrau,  13,  54. 
Jura,  63. 

K 

Kaifung,  161. 

Kamtchatka,  195. 

Keane,  A.  H.,  cited,  283. 

Kensington,  215. 

Kentucky,  128. 

Kewahwenaw  method,  284,  292, 

293,  294,  297-300. 
Kidney-iron  formation,  279. 
King,  Clarence,  cited,  129. 
Kirtland,  J.  P.,  cited,  202. 
Knowledge,    authentications  of, 

ultimately  metempirical,  358, 

364. 

Kolliker,  A.,  cited,  345. 
Kyak,  306. 


Labrabor,  124,  137, 195. 

Labyrinthodonts,  127. 

Lakelets  on  east  shore  of  Lake 

Michigan,  231. 
Lakes  and  climate,  202,  207. 
Lakes,  relative  extent  of,  210. 
Lake  temperature   and  internal 

heat,  212. 

Lamarck,  350,  352. 
Landscape,  beauty  of,  106. 
Lanoye,  de,  150. 
Laplace  cited,  179. 
Lapland,  168. 
Lapps,  relics  of  prehistoric  men, 

169. 
Lathrop,  Dr.  G.  A.,  connection  of 

with  salt  enterprise,  260,  261, 

263,  270. 
Laurentide,  ridge,  123,  125,  136, 

137,  138,  139; 'nucleus,  125. 
Lausanne,  21. 
Law,  natural,  defined,  359,372; 

method    of    search    for,    360; 

reign  of,372;  not  causal,372;  the 

expression  of  mind,  373, 374. 


Le'chaud,  glacier  of,  36. 

Leconte,  Joseph,  cited,  169. 

Lectonia,  156,  158. 

Lehman,  25. 

Le  Hon  cited,  186. 

Leidy,  Joseph,  254. 

Lemuria,  140,  142. 

Lemurs,  140. 

Lena  river,  241,  242. 

L^pileur,  90. 

Lesley,  J.  P.,  cited,  172,  177. 

Les  Ouches,  30. 

Lesquereux,  Leo,  169. 

Lewes  cited,  384. 

Lian  Tung,  Gulf  of,  162. 

Little  Falls,  138. 

Liu  Kiu  islands,  163. 

London,  climate  of,  194 

Long  Branch,  210,  226. 

Longfellow,  H.,  quoted,  150. 

Long  Island  Sound,  126. 

Louis  le  DCbonnaire,  22. 

Luzon,  164. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  cited,  178, 180, 

183. 

Lyon's  Salt  Well,  259,  277. 
Lyster,  H.  P.,  cited,  203. 

M 

Mackinac,  205. 

Madagascar,  140. 

Madeira  islands,  144. 

Magellan,  Straits  of,  195. 

Magland,  27. 

Maladetta,  66. 

Malayans,  165,  166. 

Malay  Archipelago,  163,  164. 

Mammals,  variations  among,  342. 

Mammoth,  hairy,  141,  166,235; 
Rochester  specimen  of,  239; 
buried  in  ice,  241,  243;  cir- 
cumstances of  burial  of,  244. 

Mammoths,  distribution  of,  241; 
origin  of  name  of,  243. 

Man  a  witness  of  geological 
events,  154. 

Manistee  Salt  Well,  273. 

Manitowoc,  216. 

Maori  document,  282. 

Marcellus,  143. 

Marks,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  84. 


INDEX. 


395 


Marsh,  O.  C.,  254;  trip  of  to  An- 
telope  Station,  302;  discov- 
ery of  American  horses  by, 
302  seq ;  views  of  on  evolution, 
304;  views  of  criticised,  305. 

Martel,  62. 

Martin  cited,  163. 

Martin,  L.,  237,  238. 

Martins,  Charles,  90,  186. 

Maryland,  210. 

Mascarene  continent,  140. 

Massachusetts  Bay,  126. 

Mastodon,  249 ;  American  species 
of,  251;  European  species  of, 
253. 

Material  continuity  sometimes 
impossible,  315. 

Matterhorn,  13,  89. 

Matter  not  the  subject  of  force, 
381. 

Maud  it,  Mont,  36,  42,  49,  54,  60, 
72,  79,  88,  89. 

Maury,  M.  F.,  cited,  190,  192. 

Mauvais  Pas,  46. 

McCracken,  S.  B.,  cited,  203. 

McGee,  W.  J.,  cited,  186. 

Mechanism  the  expression  of 
mind,  373. 

Medina  sandstone  eroded,  177. 

Mediterraneans,  140,  160. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  158. 

Meek,  F.  B.,  343. 

Memphis,  Egypt,  158. 

Meues,  158. 

Mental  phenomena,  362,  364. 

Mer  de  Glace,  first  impressions 
of,  35 ;  nearer  view  of,  36,  62 ; 
crossing  of,  40, 41  seq. ;  motion 
of,  52. 

Metaphysical  conceptions  in 
science,  380,  382,  383,  384,  385. 

Metcalf,  Martin,  263. 

Mexico,  Gulf  of,  128,  141,  148, 
193;  republic  of,  129. 

Miage,  Glacier  of,  97. 

Michigan,  126. 

Michigan,  Lake,  former  extent 
of,  170;  influence  of  on  cli- 
mate, 209. 

Michigan  Salt  Group,  268,  279. 

Middendorff,  243. 


Midi,  Aiguilles  of,  25,  49,  66,  68, 
71,  72,  76. 

Miller,  Hugh,  on  Genesis,  327. 

Miller,  Joaquin,  quoted,  147. 

Milne-Edwards  cited,  140. 

Miltonic  picture  of  creation,  323, 
325. 

Milwaukee,  climate  of,  211,  215. 

Mimont,  Mont,  68,  71. 

Mincopies,  165. 

Mindinao,  164. 

Minerals  of  Mont  Blanc,41. 

Minimum,  mean,  in  climate,  225. 

Minnesota,  131. 

Mississippi  valley,  132,  134;  riv- 
er, 132,  149;  bar,  149;  delta, 
150,  154;  state,  147. 

Moa,  295. 

Mofiat,  J.  W.,  on  quasi-coin,  171, 
172,  173. 

Molars  of  proboscidians,  249, 
250,  252. 

Molasse  of  Switzerland,  178. 

M61e,  25,  27,  107. 

Molluscs,  variations  among,  342. 

Mongoloids,  140,  141. 

Montanvert,  ascent  of,  33. 

Mont  Blanc  du  Tacul,  54. 

Mont  Blanc,  from  Lausanne,  21 ; 
from  Geneva,  24, 107 ;  from  St. 
Martin,  28 ;  from  Les  Ouches, 
30;  from  foot  of  Glacier  des 
Bois,  48  seq. ;  from  the  BreV- 
ent,  54,  64;  geology  of,  53; 
view  from  summit  of,  60,  89; 
sojourn  on  summit  of,  90. 

Moiitce  de  la  C6te,  76. 

Moore,  J.  Carrick,  cited,  177. 

Moraine  of  Glacier  des  Bossons, 
31,  67 ;  of  the  Mer  de  Glace, 
46,  50,  51. 

Moraines,  67. 

Moral  beauty,  118. 

Morphological  evidence  of  evo- 
lution, 333. 

Motion,  beauty  of,  116. 

Motion  of  glaciers,  see  "  Gla- 
ciers." 

Mountains  in  human  history,  98; 
lowering  of,  127,  132,  136,  144; 
nearl"  all  sedimentary,  136. 


396 


INDEX. 


Mulcts,  Grands,  55,  67,  68,  76, 

79,  80,  90,  92. 
Mulcts,  Petits,  69,  85. 
Murchison,  Sir  R.,  157. 
Mur  cle  la  C6te,  69,  85,  86. 
Murphy,  J.  J.,  cited,  185,  186. 
Music,  beauty  of,  116;  subjective 

nature  of,  117. 
Muskegon  Salt  Well,  272. 

N 

Nahant,  108,  210. 

N  ant-Blanc,  Cascade  of,  45. 

Nashville,  Tenn.,  146. 

Nature  abundant  in  beauty,  105 ; 
beauty  of,  consummate,  106; 
unity  of,  118:  interpretation  of, 
382,  383. 

Nebular  period  must  be  recog- 
nized, 327. 

Necessary  truths,  363. 

Needles  of  ice,  47,  57;  of  moun- 
tains, see  "  Aiguilles." 

Negroes,  140. 

Neufchatel,  city  and  lake,  20. 

Neve,  55,  66,  245. 

Newberry,  J.  S.,  cited,  128,  131, 
147. 

New  Brunswick,  137,  268. 

New  Buffalo,  214,  215,  220. 

Newcomb,  S.,  cited,  186,  196. 

New  England,  124,  126,  147,  181, 
210. 

Newfoundland,  124, 137. 

New  Guinea,  165. 

New  Hampshire,  210. 

New  Jersey,  126,  210. 

New  Y(  rk,  126, 139, 147, 149, 181 ; 
city,  135,  205,  208. 

Niagara  Gorge,  145,  153. 

Nicholson,  on  fossil  corals,  343. 

Nile  delta,  150,  158. 

Nisus  in  evolution,  351. 

Noah,  deluge  of,  159. 

Normal  school  fund,  259. 

North  Sea,  148 ;  twice  dry  laud, 
166,  167. 

Nova  Scotia,  268. 

Nova  Zembla,  180. 


Obi  Sea,  157. 

Obliquity  of  earth's  axis,  183. 
Ocean  not  permanent,  13'J. 
Ohio,  126,  128,  131,  181  ;  salines 

of,  257 ;  river,  149. 
Old  Red  Sandstone,  126. 
Onondaga   Salt   formation,  263; 

productive  in  Michigan,  272. 
Ontario,  Lake,  145. 
Order  of  creation  examined,  325 

seq. 

Ouse,  the  Great,  167. 
Ovid  quoted,  159,  160. 


Paccard,  Dr.,  95. 

Packard,  A.  S.,  cited,  345. 

Paleolithic  man  and  mammoth, 
240,  247. 

Palaeontologies!  evidence,  338; 
summary  of  principles,  339; 
insufficiency  of,  305  seq.,  319 
seq.,  330  seq. 

Palestine,  147. 

Pamir,  246. 

Papuans,  140. 

Para,  148. 

Paradis,  Mademoiselle,  97. 

Parallelism  with  embryonic  se- 
ries, 345,  347. 

Paraz,  71. 

Parma  Sandstone  yielding  brine, 
271. 

Patagonia,  195. 

Payot,  V.,  cited,  43,  53,  56,  88,  98. 

Pe-chili,  Gulf  of,  161,  162,  163. 

Peking,  161. 

Pelerins,  Cascade  of,  57,  70. 

Pennsylvania,  126. 

Peoria  Lake,  173. 

Peruvian  civilization,  141. 

Pestalozzi,  21. 

Petites  Monte'es,  69,  78. 

Petit  plateau,  69,  79. 

Phenomena,  sensible,  358;  super- 
sensible, 362;  of  consciousness 
classified,  363  ;  as  manifesta- 
tions of  force,  381. 


INDEX. 


397 


Phenomena  of  consciousness  re- 
ferred to  necessary  truths,  363. 

Philippine  islands,  164,  165. 

Physical  beauty,  105  seq. 

Pictured  Rocks,  134. 

Pierre  a  I'Echelle,  68,  72. 

Pierre  Poiutue,  57, 68 ;  view  from,, 
71. 

Pilar,  G.,  cited,  186. 

Pillars  of  Hercules,  142. 

Pitschner,  Dr.,  90. 

Plans  in  nature,  and  design,  377. 

Plants,  variations  among,  342. 

Plaster  Point,  265. 

Plateau  du  Milieu,  69,  79. 

Plato,  142,  324. 

Playfair,  L.,  19. 

Pliocene  man,  169. 

Plow  evolved,  315,  316. 

Pococke,  and  the  Mer  de  Glace, 
36;  and  Chamonix,  61. 

Poissou  cited,  180. 

Polders,  156. 

Pole,  terrestrial,  shifting  of,  179. 

Pools  of  water  on  glaciers,  43. 

Porto  Santc,  144. 

Portugal,  143,  144. 

Potsdam,  N.  Y.,  138. 

Pouillet  cited,  176. 

Powell,  J.  W.,  cited,  147,  148. 

Prairies,  156,  158,  170  ;  copper 
relic  from,  170. 

Praz,  torrent  of,  70. 

Precession  of  equinoxes,  183, 184. 

Pregny,  22. 

Presuppositions  of  science,  382, 
383. 

Protogine,  54. 

Pumpelly,  R,  cited,  163. 

Punjab,  246. 

Purpose  implied  in  law,  374. 

Pus/ta,  156. 


Quasi-coin  from  Illinois  prairies, 
170  seq. ;  opinions  on,  172. 


Railroad  generosity,  301. 
Ramsay,  A.  C.,  cited,  177,  178. 
Randall,  86. 


Raphael,  cartoons  of,  115. 

Rawliuson,  H.,  157. 

Reade,  Charles,  quoted,  113. 

Reason,  ideas  of,  in  our  appre- 
hension of  beauty,  103 ;  in  sci- 
ence, 363,364,  365,  366  seq.,  382, 
383,  384. 

Reign  of  ice,  148. 

Religious  noncommittalism,  322 ; 
the  result  of  effoit,  323. 

Rendu,  19. 

Renovation  of  continents,  131. 

Rensselaer,  97. 

Reserve  of  scientific  men,  322. 

Retardation  of  development,  351. 

Rhine,  148,  167. 

Rhinoceros  imbedded  in  ice,  241. 

Rhone,  23. 

Rhone  glacier,  23. 

Richthofen,  von,  cited,  163. 

Ridge  road  of  Ontario  shore,  145. 

River  channels  buried,  128,  131. 

River  sediments,  149. 

Rochers  rouges,  66,  67,  69,  85, 
95. 

Rock  cities,  145. 

Rocks,  stratified,  measure  denu- 
dation, 122;  origin  of,  123,  135; 
old  materials  made  over,  135. 

Rocky  Mountains,  123,  142 ;  sedi- 
ments from,  132,  149-  climate 
of,  209. 

Roesler,  cited,  157. 

Rogers,  W.  B.,  cited,  178. 

Rosa,  Monte,  54. 

Rothschild,  Adolf,  22;  country 
seat  of,  106. 

Rouges,  Aiguilles.  25,  32,  48,  71, 
78?  88. 

Rousseau,  108. 

Rudimental  structures,  314,  337. 

Ruitors,  Glacier  of,  89. 

Russia,  156,  208. 


Saginaw  Bay,  climatic  influence 

of,  222. 
Sahara,  158. 
Saleve,  25,  63,  107. 
Salines  of  Michigan,  256. 
Salt  basins  of  Michigan,  262,266, 


INDEX. 


271, 272;  not  known  to  Hough- 
ton,  274;  foreshadowed  by  C. 
C.  Douglass  and  B.  Hubbard, 
275. 

Salt,  geology  of,  in  Michigan, 
225;  publications  on,  267 

Salt  production,  264,  266. 

Salt  spring  lands,  255,  256,  257, 
259 

Salt  springs  in  Michigan,  255, 
261 ;  compared  with  those  in 
Ohio,  257;  Houghton's  opin- 
ions on,  276. 

Salt  Wells  at  Grand  Kapids,  258, 
259;  on  Saginaw  river,  261, 
263,  270,  271. 

Saussure,  Aiguille  de,  66. 

Saussure,  H.  de,  quoted,  36 ;  cited, 
60,  90;  sketch  of  62;  efforts  of, 
to  ascend  Mont  Blanc,  63,  79, 
91,  96. 

Savannah, 208. 

Savoy,  Duke  of,  22. 

Scandinavia,  166. 

Schliemann,  144. 

Schonkirchen,  Count,  82. 

Schumakoff,  242 

Schwilgue",  14. 

Science,  limits  of,  352;  denned, 
358;  seems  to  antagonize  re- 
ligious sentiment,  361;  often 
proceeds  by  deduction,  361 ; 
recognized  certainty  of,  366; 
grounds  of  validity  of,  366;  as- 
sumes a  persistent,  thinking 
being,  366;  assumes  the  certi- 
tude of  phenomena,  367 ;  this 
only  a  belief,  367;  assumes 
uniformity  of  causation,  368; 
inclines  to  overlook  its  own 
subsumptions,  369 ;  assumes 
uniformity  of  nature,  370 ;  this 
not  simply  continuity  of  phe- 
nomena, 371 ;  contrasted  with 
philosophy,  373 ;  implies  pur- 
pose, 374 ;  does  not  furnish  ul- 
timate explanations,  378;  au- 
thority of,  strengthened  by 
metaphysics,  385. 

Scribner,  James,  and  salt  enter- 
prise, 260,  262. 

Scythian  plains,  155. 


Sediments,  geological,  origin  of, 
123,  132;  transportation  of, 
132;  of  rivers,  149,  162;  on 
coast  of  China,  162 

Selwyn,  cited,  177. 

Sensibility,  aesthetic,  103. 

Sequence  not  causation,  378. 

S£racs,  57,  74. 

Servetus,  108. 

Shansi,  161. 

Shensi,  161. 

Siberia,  141,  156,  199,  241;  ad- 
vent  of  glaciation  in,  244. 

Siberian  mammoth,  242. 

Sierra  Nevada,  129. 

Sistine  Madonna,  115. 

Skeletons  of  mastodons,  251. 

Smith,  George,  cited,  159. 

Smoothed  rock  surfaces,  177. 

Snow  increased  with  increased 
eccentricity,  189;  enveloping 
mammoths,  244. 

Socrates,  324. 

Solon,  142. 

Somerville,  Mary,  116. 

Sounds,  beauty  of,  116,  117. 

Southall,  J.  C.,  quoted,  169. 

Southern  hemisphere  glaciated, 
189,  198. 

Southey,  quoted,  45. 

Space  and  time,  363. 

Spitzbergen,  167. 

St.  Bernard,  Great,  89. 

St.  Clement,  of  Alexandria,  quot- 
ed, 113. 

Steppes,  156. 

St  Gervais,  29,  61,  79. 

St.  Hilaire,  350. 

St.  Lawrence  river,  123,  137. 

St  Louis,  208. 

St.  Martin,  28. 

Stockwell  cited,  196. 

Stoics  on  creation,  324. 

Storm  at  sea,  sublimity  of,  108. 

St.  Petersburg  mammoth,  238, 
242,  243. 

Strabo  cited,  158. 

Strasbourg  cathedral  and  clock, 

Strato  cited,  158. 

St.  Roque,  Cape  of,  193. 

Struggle  for  existence,  350, 


INDEX. 


399 


Stumps  of  ancient  continents, 
124. 

Stuttgart  mammoth,  235. 

Succession  of  formations  miscon- 
ceived, 277. 

Successions,palseontological,339; 
among  phenomena,  358. 

Sumatra,  164. 

Superior,  Lake,  134, 209. 

Survival  of  the  fittest,  350. 

Symbolical  character  of  beauty, 
112,  114,  116. 

Syinplegades,  156. 


Taconnay,  Glacier  of,  30,  56,  57, 

66,  69,  73,  78. 
Taipiug  rebellion,  160. 
Talefre,  Glacier  of,  36,  89. 
Tawas,  264,  272. 

Taylor  and  Etheridge,  cited,  177. 
Teeth  of  proboscidians.  249,  250, 

252. 

Telegraphic  plateau,  139. 
Tennessee,  146. 
Tennyson,  quoted,  138,  139. 
Tertiary,  147,  148. 
Tete  Noir,  30. 
Texas,  148. 
Thames,  148,  167. 
Thebes,  158. 
Theopompus,  142. 
Theories  in  evolution,  350. 
Thomson,  James,  177. 
Thomson,  Sir  William,  150,  186, 

196. 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  195. 
Time  and  space,  363. 
Time,  geologic,  152,  169;  grasp 

of,  174;  clew  to,  195. 
Time-worlds,  132. 
Timor,  165. 

Tittabawassee  Salt  Well,  258. 
Tobolsk,  195. 

Tour,  Aiguille  de  la,  72,  73. 
Traverse  City,  214,  218,  221. 
Tribune  article,  305;  responses 

to,  310. 

Tribune  reports,  319. 
True,  the,  is  beautiful,  105,  118. 
Truth,  beauty  of,  118. 


Tsung  Ming  island,  162. 

Tunnel,  Roman,  30. 

Tuomey,  M.,  cited,  178. 

Turkestan,  157,  246. 

Tusks  of  Siberian  mammoth,  242. 

Tweed  river,  167. 

Tycho  Brahe,  362. 

Tylpr,  E.  B.,  on  evolution  with 

discontinuity,  315. 
Tyndall,  90. 
Tyne  river,  167. 
Tyrol,  181. 
Tyrrhenians,  144. 

U 

Ulterior  questions  in  evolution, 

349,  352. 
Uncertainty  in  induction,  cause 

of,  371. 
Understanding,   relation    of,    to 

beauty,  103. 
Uniformity  of  nature,  359;  this 

a  rational    anticipation,  372; 

implies  mind  in  nature,  372. 
Unity   the    object    of    rational 

search,  369. 

University,  National,  at  Mack- 
mac,  226 
Utah,  129. 

V 

Variational  evidence,  341. 

Vegetation  above  Montanvert,37 ; 
on  Mont  Mimont,  72;  on  Colo- 
rado plains,  130. 

Vend  id  ad  quoted,  246. 

Venetz,  19. 

Veracity  of  consciousness,  366, 
367,  368. 

Vermont,  144. 

Verona,  181. 

Vertes,  Aiguilles,  45, 64. 

Vevay,  21. 

Victoria  Land,  198. 

Virtue,  beauty  of,  119. 

Vogt,  C.,  18,  176. 

Voirons,  25,  63,  107. 

Volcanic  eruptions  ,164, 169. 

Volga,  157. 

Volitional  conditions,  350. 

Volition  in  evolution,  353. 


400 


INDEX. 


Voltaire,  22,  108. 

Von  Tschudi  on  hybrids,  342. 

Vosges,  14,  63. 

W 

Walcott.  C.  D.,  cited,  177. 
Wallace,  A.  R,  178,  180. 
Wall,  The  Great  Chinese,  181. 
Ward,    H.    A.,    natural   history 

establishment  of,  234. 
Warren,  General,  cited,  131. 
Warring,  C.  B.,  cited,  186. 
Waverly  group,  279. 
Well,  artesian,  in  Illinois,  170. 
Weser  river,  167. 
West  India  islands,  138. 
West  Indian  continent,  139. 
Wheeled  vehicles  evolved,  315. 
White  Sea,  157. 
Whitestone  point,  265. 
Whitney,  J.  D.,  cited,  169. 
Whittemore,  C.  H.,  265. 
Wild,  18. 

Wilkes,  Commander,  cited,  198. 
Wilkes'  Land,  198. 
Wilkinson,  Miss,  84. 
Wilmot,  W.  H.,  cited,  170. 
Windham  and  Chamonix,  61. 
Windham  and  the  Merde  Glace, 

36. 
Winds  and  currents  correspond, 

191. 


Winds,  effect  of,  on  climate,  200, 

206,  213. 
Winds,  prevailing  direction  of. 

213,  219. 
Winkart,  81. 
Winnipeg,  131. 
AVinslow,  cited,  169. 
Wisconsin,  131. 
Wisner,  Governor  Moses,  260. 
Wceikoff,  A.,  cited,  162. 
Woldley,  96. 
Woman,  beauty  of,  111. 
Women  of  different  nations,  35. 
Wood,  cited,  157. 
Worn  out  lands,   124,  130,  139, 

140,  141. 

Wurmbrand,  Count,  82. 
Wurtz,  H.,  cited,  178. 
Wyoming  territory,  148. 


Xeniades  on  creation,  324. 
Xithuthrus,  158,  159. 


Yang-tse,  162. 

Yellow  river,  160. 

Yellow  Sea,  160,  1(52,  163,  166. 

Young  brothers,  87. 

Yucatese  civilization,  141. 

Yu,  The  Great,  161. 

Yverdon,  21. 


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